Tech Sector business hit by NSA spying

Silicon Valley is already feeling the business impact of the NSA data gathering effort:

Will overseas business owners think twice about trading with us because they fear that their communications might be intercepted and used for commercial gain by American competitors? Most chilling of all: Will foreigners stop using the products and services of California technology and media companies — Facebook, Google, Skype, and Apple among them — that have been accomplices (they say unwillingly) to the federal surveillance?

The answer to that last question: Yes. It’s already happening. Asian governments and businesses are now moving their employees and systems off Google’s Gmail and other U.S.-based systems, according to Asian news reports. German prosecutors are investigating some of the American surveillance. The issue is becoming a stumbling block in negotiations with the European Union over a new trade agreement. Technology experts are warning of a big loss of foreign business.

John Dvorak, the PCMag.com columnist, wrote recently, “Our companies have billions and billions of dollars in overseas sales and none of the American companies can guarantee security from American spies. Does anyone but me think this is a problem for commerce?”

This is slowing the rush to "Cloud Services".  I am hearing from people I talk to professionally that a lot of US companies are reconsidering public cloud services, too.  They specifically cite concern over whether the service provider might turn their data over to the Fed.Gov.

And the Government itself is turning away from this technology:

US government spending on cloud technology is set to spike in the next two years, though security concerns have scared agencies away from public clouds.

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For all the federal government's push to adopt new technologies as part of a major IT refreshment strategy, agencies are still apparently concerned about the security and viability of public cloud technologies.

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Although providers such as Amazon, HP, and Microsoft have pursued security certifications such as FISMA and FedRAMP – Amazon has set the pace in this area via its dedicated GovCloud data centers – many government departments are hamstrung either by regulation or legacy hardware from going into public cloud environments.

Nice return on Silicon Valley's political contributions last election cycle.