Are EU regulations on this issue substantially different?
I ask because every time this topic comes up, a comment will inevitably be made saying how you should keep data in the EU and this will be the death of the US IT industry. However, what I've never seen is any actual evidence that these court cases would proceed differently in an EU country (and note that Microsoft actually seems to be winning their similar case as far as I know).
As an example, suppose France had a Google equivalent (Le Google) with servers all over the world. The French government issued a search warrant for an email account, and Le Google refused to hand over the contents of that email account because the data was (or could be) on a server located in a United States. Under French or EU law, is this a valid reason to reject a warrant (and does it matter if the account belongs to a French citizen or not)?
Your entity has a presence where the warrant is served. Your entity where the warrant is served can get at the data. You probably will be forced to comply.
If you genuinely want to avoid this issue, your foreign entity needs to be distinct and independent. That way Le Google could say "Serve the warrant. We have no ability to comply. What do you expect us to do?"
Of course, this means that you don't get the nice benefits of putting ALL your data into one gigantic maw to be chewed up by the machine.
Right, except the specific claim here as I understand it is that companies should be able to refuse to comply with warrants if the responsive data is stored in another country even if the company can access said data and that the lack of ability to do so exists in the US but not in the EU.
"Lack of ability" will have to be demonstrated politically as well as technically.
If Google doesn't want to be subject to US laws, then the data and servers in question have to be under the control of an entity not under US jurisdiction. And that includes financially and politically as well as technically.
This really isn't that hard. Google can either set things up so that Google US really, truly cannot affect anything in Le Google--and that includes management decisions--of course, Google does not want independent Googlets as those companies will start to compete with the mothership (or they can't function because they lose the economy of scale). Or Google can set it up so that NOBODY including Google, Le Google, etc. can get at the data because it is encrypted--of course, Google doesn't want this as then they cannot mine your stuff for advertising.
Why do you think Microsoft just announced all the SGX support stuff for Azure? They want email to be really, truly encrypted such that even Microsoft can't get at it so that the can keep selling Office 365 without getting embroiled in this.
I ask because every time this topic comes up, a comment will inevitably be made saying how you should keep data in the EU and this will be the death of the US IT industry. However, what I've never seen is any actual evidence that these court cases would proceed differently in an EU country (and note that Microsoft actually seems to be winning their similar case as far as I know).
As an example, suppose France had a Google equivalent (Le Google) with servers all over the world. The French government issued a search warrant for an email account, and Le Google refused to hand over the contents of that email account because the data was (or could be) on a server located in a United States. Under French or EU law, is this a valid reason to reject a warrant (and does it matter if the account belongs to a French citizen or not)?