Last week a client (book editor) decided to go with a canadian hosting company because of certain copyright and public domain problems their lawyers were fearing if their content was hosted in the US. This morning I read this post about the Amazon S3 SLA and the author comments:

Ontario’s Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Acts (FIPPA) don’t allow me to store sensitive information (e.g., students’ work) in jurisdictions that permit secret warrants, like those mandated by the USA PATRIOT Act. It wouldn’t even help if Amazon ran a cluster farm in Canada, since the PATRIOT Act applies to subsidiaries of American firms operating in other countries as well.

Different but related issues. I’m sure those same issues apply to a lot of countries. Opportunity for canadian companies to step in with similar services? I can’t think of someone already well positioned to “just add” the service but I’m sure there’s expertise somewhere.

I’ve also wondered previously about opportunities with cheap electricity, seems The Google and other huge server farms are spending more on electricity than on hardware, hello Hydro Québec joint venture?