TechWeek Readers Abandon US Cloud Over Privacy

Users are reported to be moving away from US cloud providers following the PRISM revelations and a poll of TechWeekEurope readers suggests the movement is a stampede.

Since whistleblower Edward Snowden revealed that the US government is monitoring online activity through PRISM, research has suggested that US cloud services will lose up to $35 billion of business. Some services offering secure email have closed down. Now, a poll suggests our readers are definitely planning to move out of US services.

Get off of their cloud?

Eight hundred readers responded to our poll, and nearly 60 percent (58.7 percent) of them plan to move  away from US cloud providers. They join the nearly 22 percent who never used US cloud in the first place, making a huge majority not buying American vapour.

Nearly 18 percent are unfazed by the revelations. They will carry on using US cloud providers, perhaps because they are quite happy they have nothing to hide from the US government, or they believe they would be spied on wherever they go – or maybe they simply don’t believe the stories.

We were surprised to find a small number (just under two percent) actually plan to move their data onto US cloud services. They may feel “better the devil you know”, or may believe President Obama’s assertion that everyone is safer if they surrender some of their privacy to the US government.

Overall, it looks like PRISM really is bad news for US businesses on the Net.

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