"I am troubled, as you are, to see that governments in several of these fast-moving markets are coming up with new ways to shut off world- leading IT products and services to promote their own companies," Brady said.

In August 2011, for example, authorities in Indonesia issued a draft amendment to that country's law governing electronic transactions that would require data service providers to establish a physical presence -- including data centers -- in the country. A similar provision described in the BSA report that is under consideration in Vietnam would establish new cross-border restrictions on IT services and require cloud service providers to set up shop within the country.

Alternatively, some countries, including China and India, have been establishing their own laws and policies that seem designed to circumvent global efforts to achieve consensus on open standards.

Chinese authorities, for instance, have undertaken an effort to modernize that country's standards which, in some cases, invites conflict with existing standards promulgated by groups like the International Organization for Standardization or the Internet Engineering Task Force.

"What we're seeing in some countries is actually an intrusion in the standards-setting process," said Cheri McGuire, Symantec's vice president of global government affairs.