[mytailorisrich]

Virtually all foreign companies that set-up shop in Europe (or anywhere else) do so by setting up local subsidiaries.

Google, Amazon, Facebook, Apple, etc. When you deal with all of these guys in Europe you deal with their local subsidiary(ies), not the US mothership.

[hnbad]

This doesn't matter as far as the concerns about US warrantless surveillance laws go because those laws also apply to subsidiaries of US companies. IIRC Microsoft tried to argue that its EU subsidiary could not comply with US requests and lost.

[cbg0]

I'm aware of their use of subsidiaries, but is this true for ownership of the buildings and hardware, or just something done for tax purposes?

[mytailorisrich]

Usually everything is through subsidiaries. For tax and profit allocation purposes the way it works is that you set up subsidiaries in tax-friendly jurisdictions and then channel the profits to them through contracts between subsidiaries.

The general point is what does "moving away from US cloud services" mean, then?

Does it mean not using infrastructure actually located in the US? Or does it mean effectively boycotting US-owned companies that may be fully located, including infrastructure, in Europe?