US Tech Firms Look To Data Centers on European Soil

Silicon Valley companies say they’ve been preparing for Oct 6’s European Court of Justice decision invalidating the US-Europe Safe Harbor agreement on data transfers. Their lawyers have been working to come up with legal mechanisms to keep them in compliance with EU data protection laws. But they’ve also been spending billions building data storage and processing facilities on European soil, reducing the need to transfer data to the US in the first place. That effort dovetails with an explosion of cloud based services that require more data centers.

International Data Corporation estimates that in 2015, $8.2 billion will be spent in Europe on professional cloud services, an increase from only $560 million in 2010. In light of the Safe Harbor decision -- in which the court now enables national data protection authorities to examine data transfers out of the EU -- having European based facilities makes life easier.