We're planning to use hosting in Europe for part of this reason. I simply do not trust the US government not to come fishing after my customers data, and I don

We're planning to use hosting in Europe for part of this reason. I simply do not trust the US government not to come fishing after my customers data, and I don't want to be in a position of getting "National Security" Letter. The company itself is located outside the USA for this reason as well. What footprints we do have in the USA (namely, gmail, and a tiny bit of AWS) are being offshored as we prepare for going live with our MVP. Further, the tendency in the last year for the US legislative branch to pass really quite unconstitutional legislation does not give much hope that matters will improve. I'm talking not just about SOPA, but NDAA, and even the so called "Stimulus" act which contained provisions giving the federal government the power to centralize all hospital records under federal control. (at least in the revision I read.) I have some concerns about eruope. I would not host any data in Britian for similar reasons, as the USA. It seems continental europe has reacted negatively to the results of the PATRIOT act, and one would hope, are not going to impose similar measures as a result. If necessary, we may move our services to the middle east or to asia, but that would be unfortunate. It is a real shame to have to consider all these factors that have absolutely nothing to do with providing a quality product. I'd rather have servers in the USA to provide better service to customers in the USA. But I consider my customers data a sacred trust, even if its almost all pretty trivial data. Thus I anonymize what I collect and I don't collect more than is necessary, but these measures can be reversed for surveillance purposes, and thus honor requires me to protect it. I hope I never get into a situation where my business faces being forcibly shut down if I refuse to betray the trust of my customers. I find it very sad that so many american companies are not even putting up a fight.