Basecamp and ITAR

Here's something to consider if you're thinking of using Basecamp as an online project management tool: ITAR. If you're doing anything with export-controlled data, you have to ensure that only U.S. persons--U.S. citizens and permanent residents, within the U.S.--have access to said data. That means that foreign persons--everybody else, including U.S. persons outside the U.S. (I think)--can't have access.

Basecamp uses Rackspace's network, which includes data centres in the U.K. By itself that means that you can't use Basecamp with export-controlled information, but consider also that even if all the data centres were in the U.S. you can't be certain that only U.S. persons would have access to your data.

I don't mean to pick on Basecamp, I think they offer an excellent service and for 99.9% of users this would never be a problem. If you're in that 0.1% group though, you should seriously consider hosting your own service to make sure your ITAR-compliant. Suggestions for this kind of functionality would include phpCollab and activeCollab. You might also want to take a closer look at any other web services and/or applications your company may be considering. Better safe than sorry!