The following are some best practices that you should consider incorporating into your cloud-computing policies and procedures. Understand that the purpose is not to curb behavior but to proactively limit the scope of your collection efforts by identifying approved cloud-based platforms.

Before investing in a SaaS application, do your due diligence. Understand what information is accessible and what reporting functions are included. Many of these applications were not intended for e-discovery, so you will need to know if the technology has the functionality to comply with a discovery request. Include your IT department in the conversation with your prospective vendor.
After a matter arises, determine the relevant custodians and question them to understand what technology they use and what data they store where. Doing so will increase the defensibility of your actions.
Don't automatically assume you need to search social networks like Twitter and LinkedIn for potentially responsive information. Social media relevance is case-specific —just because information is available there does not mean it is relevant. Concerns about IP theft? Social media may be critical. Patent infringement? Not so much. Question your custodians first to determine how they use such sites, verify if the case requires expanding to these sources, and then determine if collection is necessary.
If you must exert some control over your employees, consider logging their Internet activity to keep records of what cloud-based technology they use. In addition, you may want to instruct IT to put a hold on a custodian's Internet cache once litigation arises.

Jason Ray is a senior director in the Technology Practice of FTI Consulting. This column first appeared at InsideCounsel.com, a sister site of Credit Union Times.

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