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US Tech Companies Expected To Lose More Than $35 Billion Over NSA Spying
Patrick O'Neill writes: Citing significant sales hits taken by big American firms like Apple, Intel, Microsoft, Cisco, Salesforce, Qualcomm, IBM, and Hewlett-Packard, a new report says losses by U.S. tech companies as a result of NSA spying and Snowden's whistleblowing "will likely far exceed" $35 billion. Previously, the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation put the estimate lower when it predicted the losses would be felt mostly in the cloud industry. The consequences are being felt more widely and deeply than previously thought, however, so the number keeps rising.
Should be a great improvement for gun sales though.
If they weren't in Collusion with the US Government, and were the SEPARATE entities that they are SUPPOSED to be, they wouldn't have this problem.
This is PEOPLE voting with DOLLARS.
If you want to do illegal things, we WILL STOP BUYING YOUR PRODUCTS!
Period.
So all these companies are afraid of US spying, so they buy the equipment from Chinese companies. They are so much more trustworthy.
ABC Anywhere But China.
Government actions have no cost on businesses. ;-)
as a result of NSA spying and Snowden's whistleblowing
Could anyone give us a sensible and argumented answer as to how a mere whistleblower's can cost the US economy that kind of money ?
Religous speak to God. Insane are spoken to by God. When all shut up, one can finally hear Shostakovich in peace
Sure looks good, though. $35 billion less money spent on the cloud.
But. Unless we develop into a World where each nation makes all of their own tech, which seems unlikely, somebody, somewhere else, will still be using exported tech as surveillance machinery.
It just won't be the US as much.
Happiness in intelligent people is the rarest thing I know.
Ernest Hemingway
I, for one, appreciate that it takes money to protect my freedom from terrorists. I have nothing to hide
I might even use so-called "free" software one day if it would stop circumventing the efforts of those trying to protect us. In the meantime I'll stick with Microsoft and Apple.
I haven't seen any estimates on the benefits/profits to US (tech) companies from the industrial espionage part of the NSA spying published anywhere? Would anyone have a number or a link to a source?
Just trying to get some perspective here.
The NSA fallout here is astonishing. We're a Type A Agency with me as prime IT guy/consultant for everything and a half-assed Wordpress Pipeline for web projects. We don't do big things but we do quite a few as Agency Project spinnoffs and sideprojects. What strikes me is how many customers specifically ask for hosting on German soil, Google-free tracking and such - even for projects where it shouldn't matter that much. The point is, they don't want to make them selves vulnerable in case of a data-breach. Germany privacy laws are pissy like that.
Bottom line:
The negative press the US IT industry has gotten with NSA and such has a measurable impact - I myself am surprised.
We suffer more in our imagination than in reality. - Seneca
as a result of NSA spying and Snowden's whistleblowing
Also, FTA:
The actual losses "will likely far exceed $35 billion," according to the ITIF report, because the entire American tech industry has performed worse than expected as a result of the Snowden leaks.
Serious question. Does the leak actually count as part of the cause? I know if everything were still under wraps the spying might not have cost tech companies anything in lost sales, but it seems unfair to suggest that Snowden is partly responsible for the consequences of what he revealed simply because the consequences MIGHT have been avoided or at least delayed if he hadn't revealed it. I might just be making something out of nothing, it just seems like a dick move to act like it's his fault the way some people make it out to be. Not that it's anything new, but it was almost excusable when this was fresh and people still didn't fully understand the situation, now we've all had enough time to take it in and figure out who the real bad guys are.
What does it matter how much business the US loses, and how poor they get as a nation as a result of all of the spying? At least they are safe from threat.
Right?
I'm assuming demand for gadgetry hasn't decreased overall, so what non American companies are getting the money?
US Industry (Cisco et al) betrayed a basic position of trust. They did so when they helped facilitate the Great Firewall of China and assisted the Chinese government in imprisoning dissidents. Hell, they did when obese captains of industry were on TV signing accords with Chinese politicians days after the Tiananmen Square massacre.
However, facilitating the NSA's indiscriminate violation of everybody's privacy worldwide was a step too far for just about everyone, and now they are getting the smackdown they so richly deserve after decades of betraying our most basic, sacred constitutional principles.
In short, fuck every tech company who cooperated with the NSA. You haven't even begun to get what you deserve.
The Future of Human Evolution: Autonomy
And saying it's treasonous to have reported on illegal surveillance state we run, because it causes damage to our technology industry.
Of course, the flip side is that they shouldn't have been doing illegal things and thus, would have had nothing to report...
Anyway, I'll just wait for it.
The losses won't stop until either the clients have confidence in their ability to secure the systems or the NSA learns boundaries.
The companies can't afford to blow this off. They are losing too much money to not resolve the issue.
I've decided to stop wasting my time responding to AC trolls/sockpuppets... so if you want a response from me... login.
As an European its an insult that the above quote fails to mention the industrial spying conducted by the NSA on foreign countries. In that context, mr. Snowdens revrelations have halted a massive theft of intellectual property.
This too make the U.S. loose money, as American IT hard- or software providers are generally distrusted in Europe now!!
Italicized text to be deleted for use in mainstream news reports.
Lacking <sarcasm> tags,
It is an open question how many of these companies will fail to survive. Betrayal of your customers interests is a bad way to do business in a very competitive world market. The NSA spying is one of the most anti business government actions that can be imagined. The NSA spying is an expensive and very destructive. The current administration and the Congress are clueless as they put a band-aid on a gaping self inflicted wound that will destroy some of the largest US companies and the jobs that will go with them.
Honest question. What is the "theoretical" benefit from the NSA spying? The U.S. gave up $35Bn (and, frankly, specific companies had the brunt of it), but is there "savings" because of our security?
I'm not trying to get into a political discussion of "NSA is over-stepping its bounds." I also realize that the "savings" is entirely implicit. But I do wonder if there are some other, immeasurable, benefits of the agency.
have halted
Citation, please? What has stopped?
Populus vult decipi, ergo decipiatur...
"Force shits upon Reason's back." - Poor Richard's Almanac
The DMCA outlawed innovation, sending most tech research overseas. Now the NSA is ensuring that there arent any crumbs left.
Here's hoping this is the necessary kick in the pants for Open Source hardware/software, that people need to protect us from the "protectors".
While some international sales have taken a hit, keep in mind that there are plenty of domestic companies serving the anti-terror space that have sprung up and are employing Americans. http://rectasecurity.com/ as an example.
One of the recommended fixes to this problem as stated in the article is "Complete trade agreements like the Trans-Pacific Partnership" - to which I say BULLSHIT. Americans do not want the TPP or anything like it.
Potentially every citizen's telecommunications can be spied upon. Backdoors can be planted anywhere. Now companies are getting annoyed.
Not sure why you are doing nothing about it. Here at Europe, we certainly enjoy watching your theater while munching popcorn. Can't wait for the next chapter...where nothing is done.
How else are they going to pay zero taxes?
Driving one morning, I was stopped at a roadblock by my local police - under the pretense of checking my registration; which is all computerized and there's no need for visual inspections.
There are legislatures around the US who want to ban police recording. See, in the US a police officer can shoot someone - anyone - as long as he calls in that the person "reached for my gun" immediately. If it's recorded though, he may get prosecuted.
My government can spy on me with impunity.
People are sent to prison for life for minor drug offenses. And we have more people imprisoned than China.
The US has shown that just because a government is elected by the people, it can still be a fascist police state.
TFA quotes this estimate to Information Technology and Innovation Foundation (ITIF). This is not a source that I would trust to give estimates on the amount of US business lost due to public knowledge of NSA industrial espionage.
Another publicly available and reliable source of attributing business losses to external factors already exists: public company 10-K reports, including the Risk Factors section and the MD&A section.
Although there may be a bandwagon effect, or a "bath" effect which may cause overstatement, this will provide a great upper bound for the actual business lost due to these reasons. Companies CYA by disclosing all kinds of risks, including even some of these obvious items:
> ENTRANCE INTO NEW OR DEVELOPING MARKETS EXPOSES US TO ADDITIONAL COMPETITION
> Difficulties in staffing and managing international operations
So, when we start seeing real companies blaming their missed results on this reason, then I will see the reason as credible.
-- I was raised on the command line, bitch
Very interesting, so thanx for sharing!!
If you're a person and you download a song, the FBI breaks down your door, confiscates your computer, and the prosecutor will haunt you until you commit suicide because he's talking millions in fines and decades of prison.....
But the NSA can cause $35 Billion in damage making copies of everyone's data (including songs); and not a peep from anyone.
You'd think a company hard-hit, yet with deep pockets (Oracle?); and an ego-manical CEO, would bring a lawsuit against the NSA for the damages.
But no. Apparently when you're the 800-pound gorilla, you can basically ignore the rule of law. The NSA could be shooting citizens in the head live on national TV and nobody would do anything.
If telephones are outlawed, then only outlaws will have telephones.
It's not halted, but lots of companies are now building out data centers in other countries so they don't have to deal with the NSA's nonsense.
Is it time for a class action lawsuit against the NSA? Clearly their actions (as well-intentioned as they may have been) have caused significant, long-lasting damage. Maybe Snowden can join in - it seems his life has been somewhat affected too.
- The Kessel run is for nerf herders. I can circumnavigate the entire Central Finite Curve in a lot less than 12 parse
This article doesn't argue for curtailing the NSA to benefit US businesses but in promoting these crazy trade agreements to make it illegal for other countries to avoid the NSA. The idea being that if people can't just avoid US companies to avoid the NSA then these other countries will have no competitive advantage.
I generally hated the proposed trade agreements but now I despise them.
Plus I am seeing highly promoted links to this article all over the web. I saw multiple attempts to get this on reddit when finally their army of shill voters managed to get it to the front page.
Of course this MUST mean more US tech workers are to be laid off and replaced by H1B visa holders.
Thank you NSA!
More proof the US government wants people to be out of work.
As the financial damage continues climbing, perhaps those companies who collude with the US Government will use this as a learning opportunity for future decisions. Assuming the impacted companies ultimately survive that is. I would personally rather see those who colluded with the Government on this go down in the flames of bankruptcy because trust, once lost, is never fully regained.
If I were the shareholders, I would absolutely eviscerate them for risking not only the company, but the entire industry on what boils down to a rather piss poor decision on the companies part. At the bare minimum, the entire executive level of the company would be replaced since their trustworthiness is beyond redemption.
It's rather depressing to realize just how much of the United States is built upon lies and deceit. ( Are there ANY countries on the planet that aren't ? ) We've reached a point where the lies are completely obvious now, but no one cares and nothing changes. We elect one idiot vs. another only to confirm down the road they were nothing but lies as well. It's becoming painfully obvious that following the " laws " to try and resolve this like civilized people, just aren't working. Laws are meant for the little people. Not the for-sale-lawmakers and those with the financial means to manipulate them. .
It's really sad what the lust for power and greed does to the human species. It's downright embarrassing sometimes :|
So, other than the ultra-violence option, what exactly CAN be done to start turning this around ? Can it be turned around ?
China? Europe? You gonna tell me they're any better? This is a global thing. The corruption in authority is universal.
“He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
Imagine what would have happened without Snowden blowing the whistle. The NSA would have sunk increasing dozens of billions of dollars into further projects without checks and balances and when shit finally would have blown, and it always will, the U.S. would have been boycotted by most of the world hard.
Now the U.S. has the ability to tell its politicians to rein in the abuse, to stop taxpayers' money wasted on illegal and dangerous stuff and to change. Can you imagine how much electricity will be saved alone because of the Utah Digital Darkstar of the NSA having to make do without local water supply and consequently not being able to gobble up all Internet traffic for storage? Would local lawmakers try to keep the Orwell machine from going live if they and their constituents were still in the dark about the extent of the machinations of the first truly Black Lord of the United States?
The longer one waits for returning the United States to the ground of its Constitution, the more expensive it will get. Particularly if one waits long enough that nothing but another Civil War will free the populace from the conspirators trying to abolish the Union.
All of those listed are companies that were already in trouble. Now, they want to blame the NSA for a good chunk of their ineptness.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
Their last recommendation - Complete trade agreements like the Trans-Pacific Partnership that ban digital protectionism and pressure nations that seek to erect protectionist barriers to abandon those efforts - is a reminder why Europeans do not want the TPP enacted. There's a big difference between protectionism and now wanting to hand all you private data over to the NSA. The TPP basically enforces lower US standards of business on Europe where there's more red tape to protect small companies and consumers.
As planned - given all the "former" MPAA and RIAA attorneys, etc., operating at top positions in the NSA. Just another extension of SOPA here - anything to hurt the tech companies and allow old media to turn back the clock on THEIR exclusive control of information and public opinion.
Because hitting America in the pocketbook seems to be the only way to affect change.
This is one of the few points where we use the verb form of effect. We are not modifying change, we are causing it (which strangely, cause and effect are synonyms when used as verbs, and antonyms when used as nouns, go figure).
Where the hell do they come up with these numbers? What are these, lost sales and/or imposed costs of what? It looks like a bunch a companies are just trolling of some ubiquitous write-off to explain bad earnings.
But what country that manufactures such equipment is likely free of similar problems? Where are the customers going instead?
Table-ized A.I.
German hands caught in the cookie jar:
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/05...
http://www.spiegel.de/internat...
Table-ized A.I.
and nobody living in the USA lives in China, so 0% precisely of them would have any issue with chinese spying on them.
This is something you refuse to listen to, however, because China is bad is all you can manage in the thought department.
In addition, people have gotten more careful. This will not make targeted industrial espionage harder, but a lot was of the "dragnet" type and any increased security will make that much more difficult and less effective. There are also techniques like subtly sabotaging what is sent over the wires and only communicating this in face-to-face meetings to the people that need to know.
That was the protection mechanism that causes the "capacitor plague" a few years back, where an additive needed in the electrolyte was only known to a small circle. When the recipe got stolen, the competitor buying it produced a mass of defective capacitors, which only became obvious about two years later. My guess is they lost so much business they came out with a massive net loss in the end.
The other thing is that companies will now look very careful for indications of industrial espionage in any new US product. Adding recognition-markers an leaving that knowledge with a trusted third party is not hard to do. I expect we will see lawsuits for this that will have really large compensation awarded to those wronged. We may also see products that may not be sold anywhere in the EU or maybe the world (except the US) as a result.
Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
Basically they got federal funding for developing sociogram enabling techs.
Let's be nice and say it was done by stealth VC notoriously linked to CIA and they were not aware of it. (the first social network (orkut from google) had its DNS served by In-Q-tel).
Money is about trusting (fiduceo = I believe/trust).
And now, after they took the money (which are subsidiaries as if USA was a communist country planning economy), built a monopoly based on these technologies (made even more money), they also want to be paid for the loss of money due to the loss of trust.
Shame does not exists?
That is what it should have said. Along with a few journalists that wanted to make a name for themselves.
A bunch of paranoid civil libertarians think that some big computer is going to track them caused billions of dollars in damage to the economy and billions of dollars in government spending fixing the problems.
It is legal and exactly what the NSA does to spy on other countries data and communications.
Old money's political influence sets-up a going-to-be-exposed collapse which strikes a blow against American ingenuity.
Now every American science, cloud, software, solar, tech, and service industries decrease while the old-money ready-for-disruption pipelines (military, oil, etc) keep flowing.
Science & open-source build trust from peer review. Learn systems you can trust.
What else is a company to do when somebody costs them billions?
People have know this since the Patriot Act originally came out. It allowed the US government to pretty much arbitrarily look at any of your data, provided it was located on US soil. So most of us have been avoiding using US servers, data centers, and companies for anything much important anyway. You can still use them, just not for anything critical.
The whole NSA thing may have made it a bit more high profile, but most of their partner groups, things like gmail and the like, nobody should be using for critical or sensitive information anyway. That is more about individual personal consumer use. Businesses using these sorts of services aren't presumably really aren't all that concerned about security anyway.
I work for a very very large multintional telco.... BASED ON PRICE BUT ALSO ON THIS EXTREMELY STUPID NSA WEAKENING OF USA PRODUCTS the big brass (the FINANCE GUYS !) are IMPOSING the replacement of tens of thousands of a major brand's routing and switching with a multiple vendor, non US firms etherogeneous solution (only for very large scale equipment will the US producs remain)
I am not sure this is gonna save any money on the long term but certainly makes the purchasing department very happy !!!