Re:As encryption spreads, U.S. grapples with clash between p...
by tmalsburg2 on Saturday April 11, 2015 @07:02PM
(#9361182)
> Would companies based in the US not ship a different version of their products that are exported?
They can of course try that but their clients have little reasons to trust them. Apart from that it might be very costly to develop, test, and distribute two versions of each product and to maintain compatibility, all of which puts US companies at a disadvantage.
There is already plenty of evidence for the idea that the privacy crisis helps the European industry. Many new businesses in several European countries are successfully selling privacy-reserving software and services and their future crucially depends on the trust of their customers, so they have to take privacy serious in ways that US companies don't have to, at least for now.
> It's not like there is a law of nature that makes software development outside of the US impossible.
Of course, see what I said above. I think what makes the US attractive for software development is the VC industry and culture there; a quick browse of founders in SF will reveal a ton of immigrants attracted to that culture.