I think moving off-shore is an avoidance tactic, not a solution. I live in Jersey which is an offshore finance centre, and some local companies are already mark

I think moving off-shore is an avoidance tactic, not a solution. I live in Jersey which is an offshore finance centre, and some local companies are already marketing 'offshore data warehousing'. These are smart people but they are absolutely no match for the US government when it comes to securing cloud data here. They cannot possibly be attracting savvy customers. Jersey already hands over banking data to the US and UK and they will have to hand over stored 'cloud' data, too. Best practice is to eliminate third-parties from the trust chain by encrypting locally prior to syncing. This is what I do and I wish it were simpler to set up. I can keep my private key on my machine(s) and mobile devices and securely access my decrypted content, but it's not simple enough yet that I can walk my parents through the steps over the phone. Once this gets easier the cloud providers are just 'dumb pipes' (for lack of a better term) and can be used interchangeably. It seems they are stuck between two difficult positions here - you need to trust them with your unencrypted data, and they and you need to trust the US government not to snoop too much. Neither is likely so we're back to eliminating the companies and the US government from the trust chain.