Data privacy isn’t political — it’s personal

The following is a guest post by Ben Young of member company Peer 1 Hosting and was published on Gigaom.

In the post-Snowden world, the location and security of data is not just a political issue, it’s a personal issue. Customer concerns over data privacy are having a drastic and unprecedented impact on how internet service providers, telecommunications companies and web hosting providers do business – and who they do business with. 

Two recent examples in Germany are particularly telling. First, the German government ended its contract with Verizon in late June, saying the U.S.-based telco was a liability due to its relationship with intelligence agencies like the NSA. Then, in early July, Deutsche Telekom unveiled a new highly secure German data center, which it touted as “Fort Knox” for data protection. Germany is well known for its strict data privacy standards, and clearly, new privacy concerns are reshaping how service providers do business within German borders.

Click to read the full post on Gigaom.