New reports show that when the NSA was conducting its surveillance programs, perhaps including XKeyscore and PRISM, the agency was not following its own legal guidelines. These reports, based on internal NSA audit reports leaked via the “Snowden leak”, showing the NSA violated its own privacy rules and overstepped its authority thousands of times in the past few years, will serve to further unsettle many enterprises abroad, even leading some to conclude that utilizing U.S. cloud applications is not worth risking unauthorized data access by the government and others.
Recent reports estimate this new hesitation to use U.S. cloud applications may cost providers more than $35 billion in the coming years. With new revelations that the NSA broke its own privacy rules, enterprises globally may find even more reason to hold back from U.S. cloud providers, potentially making the size of the impact even worse for U.S.-based cloud providers.
As we stated in a recent press release on the topic, when enterprises allow fears of surveillance to slow down or stop their adoption of U.S. cloud applications, it has the potential to put those enterprises at a competitive disadvantage to others in their industries – specifically in cases where they are “forced” to adopt a less beneficial/efficient cloud service for managing their business.