Since the revelations about the pervasive global spy systems of the NSA a year ago there have been threats and concerns that the matter would have a serious impact on US tech companies who have been implicated for their compliance and cooperation with the US government. Now Germany is beginning to make good on the threats.

German government to drop Verizon because of U.S. spying



The government will shift all services provided by Verizon to Deutsche Telekom by the end of 2015. It had been reviewing its communications contracts already, but concerns about possible spying by the U.S. National Security Agency helped to tip the scales against Verizon, the German Federal Interior Ministry said Thursday. Germany's move is the latest evidence that revelations about NSA eavesdropping are damaging U.S. companies' overseas business.

While the spokesperson for the German Interior Ministry initially presented this as a one of a kind situation, there is now a new announcement.

After Verizon, Germany mulls axing foreign tech



First Verizon got the boot, now the German government is considering pulling the plug on foreign companies that provide hardware for official communication networks. An Interior Ministry spokesman says Germany is examining which devices can be used if it wants to keep critical IT infrastructure safe from cyberthreats. Tobias Plate told reporters in Berlin on Friday the move is part of a broad strategy recently described by his boss, Interior Minister Thomas de Maiziere, as a new form of patriotism.

Google is now being forced to treat search results for European users with more respect for privacy than it gives to people in the rest of the world. The prospect for the hopes of American tech companies that the NSA scandal would just blow over isn't looking very good.