Poll: What’s The NSA Scandal Done To Your Attitudes?
Now surveillance by governments has been exposed, has the NSA scandal affected your trust for leading Internet brands?
When the level of spying by the NSA was revealed by the leaks of Edward Snowden in summer 2013, large cloud providers were accused of helping government agencies to snoop on their customers. In 2014, has it dented your trust in the big providers?
Last August, a TechWeek poll suggested that 60 percent of our readers were planning to move providers because of fears that their current cloud operator was playing fast and loose with their privacy. This year, in a series of polls we want to revisit the subject. First off – who do you mistrust?
Which provider do you trust least?
Since the leaks, cloud providers have been insisting that they were never willing participants in any NSA spying, and have campaigned to release a trickle of information about the numbers of requests they receive from the US government agency.
At the same time, every provider promises that where possible, data will be stored in the country in which you want it to be. This might keep it out of the hands of foreign powers, but there are complex laws governing the behaviour of US-based companies which might require them to comply with requests. And in any case, in the UK, our own GCHQ is pretty active in probing for what it sees as suspicious activity.
Given all this, you might hope your provider will look out for your privacy. Alternatively, you might have had those hopes dented by the whole saga.
Se we are asking you – which brand you think has been most tainted by the NSA spying scandal?