A new study by the IT Think Tank Information Technology & Innovation Foundation says that NSA Spying could cost the Cloud Computing industry 35 billion within 3 years. The study published here: http://www2.itif.org/... says:
The recent revelations about the extent to which the National Security
Agency (NSA) and other U.S. law enforcement and national security
agencies have used provisions in the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act
(FISA) and USA PATRIOT Act to obtain electronic data from thirdparties will likely have an immediate and lasting impact on the
competitiveness of the U.S. cloud computing industry if foreign
customers decide the risks of storing data with a U.S. company outweigh
the benefits
The study quotes Jean-Francois Audenard, the cloud security advisor to France
Telecom,
“It’s extremely important
to have the governments of Europe take care of this issue because if all the data of
enterprises were going to be under the control of the U.S., it’s not really good for the future
of the European people.”
Neelie Kroes, European Commissioner for Digital Affairs, stated the problem
quite succinctly, “If European cloud customers cannot trust the United States government,
then maybe they won't trust U.S.cloud providers either. If I am right, there are
multibillion-euro consequences for American companies. If I were an American cloud
provider, I would be quite frustrated with my government right now.
The Findings:
On the low end, U.S. cloud computing providers might lose $21.5 billion over the next
three years. This estimate assumes the U.S. eventually loses about 10 percent of foreign market to European or Asian competitors and retains its currently projected market share for the domestic market.
On the high end, U.S. cloud computing providers might lose $35.0 billion by 2016. This
assumes the U.S. eventually loses 20 percent of the foreign market to competitors and
retains its current domestic market share. (See Appendix A for details.)
These are rather hard statics to read, one can hope that faced with these kind of losses US Companies my finally draw a line in the sand and say "NO MORE", one can hope!