Countries hosting the data centres can make it illegal to allow access from outside their area/EU... or specifically to US entities along with making it illegal to move any data out without customer/local gov approval... This isn't rocket science. The company cannot do business if it doesn't follow the law. There are laws like this in places already. The company's local subsidiary tells the American company to politely pound sand and the American company says sorry, we tried, but do not have the capability to do as asked.

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edwinjm 2 hours ago | parent | next [-]

An American company will always follow US law, no matter the local laws.

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beached_whale an hour ago | parent [-]

It isn't usually an American company doing the local operations, but a local subsidiary. Like Walmart Canada telling Walmart corporate to pound sand in the 1990's over Cuban pajamas. It's illegal for Canadian companies to participate in the US embargo of Cuba.

This is all well within the realm of what governments can and do regulate. Want to do business in a country with their laws or not is the choice.

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bombcar an hour ago | parent | next [-]

At some point it comes to a head; Walmart corporate and the USA didn't care enough about Cuban pajamas, but in a situation where they DO care, you quickly get Вкусно – и точка.

The EU (nay, perhaps every country) should be prepared to deal with Microsoft or AWS completely cutting them off from access to all their systems - what would be the cost and impact?

We are rapidly heading to not one Internet, but country-specific internets that may or may not bridge to other ones in some cases.

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dijit an hour ago | parent | prev [-]

Canadian companies can't use Cloud providers at all then? I'm incredulous about that.

Google, AWS & Microsoft all nullroute the countries of Cuba, Iran and North Korea. Google also nullroutes Crimea.

So by using a cloud provider, you are participating in the embargo of Cuba.

	▲	beached_whale 40 minutes ago \| parent [-]
		Not sure Canada has the leverage/market to get them to sway here. But a body like the EU has the leverage to force local operation and control.

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j16sdiz an hour ago | parent | prev [-]

GDPR give exemption for foreign government for "national security", "important reasons of public interest" or "law enforcement", whatever that meant.