[fourier_mode]

Instead of worrying about location of the servers, the real point should be which government should be in control of the data. Even if the data is located in India under US government pressure on a company, say for some investigation, the US would still be access the data; the companies can still sell the data to other US-based companies.

Or, is location being used metaphorically over here?

[devoply]

Perhaps. But you still have oversight and physical access. You could bug the servers. You could monitor their network and so on. Your courts could create orders against the data on your servers. Also it's very dangerous as we have seen to have all your citizen's data exposed as it could allow like a country to better socially engineer your public and determine outcomes of elections.

I would double down and say if you do that, I will ban all H1Bs from leaving the country. Let's see how Trump and Silicon Valley feels about that.

[fourier_mode]

> You could bug the servers. You could monitor their network and so ... determine outcomes of elections

This is again irrespective of the server's locations.