NSA Scandal Shows Importance of Offshoring Your Digital Presence.
An often overlooked ingredient of internationalization is spreading your digital presence across multiple friendly jurisdictions. This move will help mitigate the political risk of subjecting your personal and business Internet presence to a single, intrusive jurisdiction – like the United States.
A digital presence commonly includes your IP address (which can often pinpoint you to a precise physical address), email account, online file storage, and the components of personal/business websites.
The overreach of the “War on Terror” and heavy-handed copyright laws lend the cover for any US agency to monitor and control your Internet activity. These, and myriad other laws, mean that your personal/business website can be seized at the drop of a hat under the flimsiest of pretexts. Internet service providers in the US work hand-in-glove with the US government.
Further, if your digital presence is under some form of US jurisdiction, do not assume your Internet activity is private– it isn’t. For example, Google logs your IP address while you’re online. So your entire search history is essentially stored and archived. And it’s not just your search history – every email or other information derived from activity on Google is documented and archived on Google’s servers, even if you delete it. And with the US government basically enjoying unfettered access to Google’s data, there is literally a treasure trove of personal and business information that is at their fingertips.
Fortunately, it is relatively easy and cheap to move your digital presence across borders where it can dwell in friendlier jurisdictions.
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