French ISPs will not surrender their clouds to government

libertyFrench ISPs have warned the government that they will move their operations out of France if the government brings through a bizarre spying bill.

Five hosters of French computer data said the bill will create an intelligence “exile” from France as ISPs try to avoid losing their customers by moving their operations somewhere else in the EU.

The five do not want to install the “real-time capture of data connection” boxes on their sites which is part of the law.

The ISPs believe that this project “will not reach its goal of putting every French person under surveillance, and will destroy a major segment of the economy of the country.” They said that their customers will turn to other territories to flee the intrusion.

The five have pledged to move their infrastructure, investments and employees where our customers will want to work with us. This will mean massive job losses in France.

“There are thousands of jobs … and start-ups and large companies will go also create elsewhere,” they added.

Two of the biggest data warehouses Gandi and OVH signed the statement along with IDS outfits Ikoula and Lomaco.

The French Association of Software and Internet solutions Publishers (AFDEL), which brings together publishers and Internet companies, said that the proposed implementation of the devices mentioned in the bill was “vague” and that it “feared” that this law, which is part of an extra-judicial framework, would undermine confidence in digital technologies and solutions and thus the competitiveness and attractiveness of French industry.