The Internet: Europe vs. U.S. tech companies - by Levi Sumagaysay

“We recognize that innovation improves our lives, but we want a level playing field.” says Ramon Tremosa i Balcells, a European Parliament lawmaker from Spain who backed the resolution calling for a breakup of Google.

The Wall Street Journal writes that as Europe feels increasingly threatened by the success — or dominance — of American tech companies, it is causing bigger and bigger headaches for those companies.

The call for the breakup of Google is just one example. There’s also the U.K.’s proposed “Google tax,” a 25 percent tax on profit made in the U.K. but then is shifted elsewhere. Another high-profile issue: Europe’s “right to be forgotten” ruling, which centers on Europeans’ strong views on the right to privacy and requires Google and other search engines to scrub search results on a case-by-case basis.

(Recently, there have even been calls to extend that ruling to the companies’ search websites outside Europe.) And the revelations about American government spying using Internet giants’ technology hasn’t helped, either.

Quartz notes that in France, the term GAFA, which is an acronym for Google, Apple, Facebook and Amazon, is sometimes used to express resentment over these companies’ influence.

Besides Europe’s concern about American tech companies’ effect on its economy, the Journal cites two other big themes that surround the Europeans’ discontent: The region’s proclivity for regulation vs. Silicon Valley’s disdain for it, and what is effectively a tug of war for control of the Internet.

Read more: Quoted: on Europe vs. U.S. tech companies | SiliconBeat

NSA Spyy Scandal: Snowden's NSA leaks begin to impact IBM, Sales force, Google, other tech companies - by Eric Van Susteren

Edward Snowden’s revelations on the NSA’s spying activities of U.S. tech companies' customers is beginning to hit them – hard,  according to the New York Times.

“It’s clear to every single tech company that this is affecting their bottom line,” Daniel Castro, a senior analyst at the Information Technology and Innovation Center, told the Times.

Castro predicts that the United States’ cloud computing industry could lose $35 billion by 2016, and tech research firm Forrester said the losses could be as high as $180 billion, or 25 percent of industry revenue.

Already tech companies are shifting their spending to accommodate international clients who might be concerned about their privacy. IBM said it would build 15 new data centers internationally to get companies who are sensitive about their data to use their services. The cost? $1.2 billion. Salesforce.com has similar plans.

Tech execs at many Silicon Valley companies have said they were unaware of the extent that the government was tapping into their user data when the PRISM scandal first broke. Facebook's Mark Zuckerberg, Google's Larry Page and others have insisted they were only complicit in the government’s requests when it was required of them by a court order.

Still, many people and companies continue to be suspicious of tech companies’ role in the controversy, and this week the NSA's general counsel  said the companies knew the agency was collecting the data.
As a result, tech industry leaders say they’re not even being considered in some contracts and losing business.

Read more: Snowden's NSA leaks begin to impact IBM, Salesforce, Google, other tech companies - SiliconValley Business Journal