But even Commissioner Reding had to cry foul late last year when she saw the advertising of an EU Cloud Computing service suggesting that its geographic location would protect data from the reaches of the USA Patriot Act.

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That episode prompted Mrs. Reding to issue a reminder about the importance of the free flow of data between the continents. Her comments reflected an understanding that Europeans need access to the best Cloud services regardless of geography and that to enjoy the full benefits of Cloud computing, there cannot be a balkanized system of Clouds around the world where as one commentator put it, "the fuzzy Internet cloud becomes a series of neatly divided gas bubbles."

Mrs. Reding no doubt was aware when she objected to the notion of an "EU Cloud" that even European countries with strict privacy laws also have anti-terrorism laws that allow expedited government access to Cloud data. Indeed, France's anti-terrorism law has been said to make the Patriot Act look "namby-pamby" by comparison.

While the Patriot Act continues to be invoked as a kind of shorthand to express the belief that the United States government has greater powers of access to personal data in the Cloud than governments elsewhere, and that "local clouds" are the solution, a recent study we conducted of the laws of Australia, Canada, Denmark, France, Germany, Ireland, Japan, Spain, United Kingdomand the United Statesshows that it is simply incorrect to assume that the United States government's access to data in the Cloud is greater than that of the other advanced economies.