> Do you expect or want companies NOT to obey law?

Of course not. I expect privacy conscious companies to incorporate in privacy friendly countries. Or, to put it the other way around, I evaluate company privacy claims in the context of the law they operate in.

> Do you expect or want companies NOT to obey law?

Whose law? US law in this space says a lot about the rights of US citizens but a lot less about the rights of non-US citizens. So, yes it's reasonable to expect that a US company should obey the law but it doesn't follow that there's no reasonable concern with that.

Having said that, I applaud Cloudfare for making this step. Just because something isn't NSA proof doesn't mean that it has no value. But the concern is valid given that Cloudfare, presumably, still have access to the lookup data.

They say they're not logging, so there's no data to supply to any spooks.

Sure, but that doesn't mean, and is unlikely to mean, that they can't log.

They won't be able to pass historic data as they, presumably, don't have it. But if they are formally requested to give information, at least for targeted users, my understanding is that they are legally obliged to comply i.e. they can't refuse to collect if asked.

I believe there are caveats to that e.g. they can't be forced to backdoor an application but I don't believe that that would be necessary in this case.

If the law is purposely working against the public best interest in violation of the right to privacy I expect them to make a moral stand.

In USA the law provides them with a legal excape to avoid that moral stand, which they promptly do.

It is not about "obeying law" as much as a the work of a soldier is "obeying superiors orders". There are moral limits. Now grow up and get to know yours.

I think the preference is for companies not to be subject to certain US laws (e.g. Patriot act or NSLs that must be kept secret)

Say whatever about the feasibility of this, just don’t try to make it a binary option between law-abiding or criminal.

Couldn't this be avoided altogether by not storing request data?

I don't think the statement implies any of that. Just that they can't guarantee privacy while operating in US.

Well having privacy is ok. However if there is an valid order to provide queries for specific source IPs, that is probably a reason to comply. If anyone asks for all data, well yeah, that is not ok.

I want companies, as people and as organizations, to behave ethically.