Today is a bittersweet day at Casa de Vlad. On one hand, I am stoked that yet another product of mine is going worldwide as a commercial success. On the other hand, it’s deployment is guided by a political/trade compromise that is very hard for me to take.
I have made my dislike of a certain subcontinent and what its done to the American economy a subject of frequent parodies on this blog. Today, the shoe is on the other foot, and America, the land of the free, is no longer a place trusted by the businesses or citizens outside of USA. Captain’ Chokes on Pretzels and the Patriot Act have made our neighbors to the north hesitate to store data in USA. European Union actually has laws requiring notification when the personally identifiable data is stored on servers in America. Yup, the land of the free is not good enough for the privacy laws. Australia and NZ are trated like distant cousins crashing the family dinner and being asked to pay for their meals – the cost of bandwidth down under is nothing short of unreal (think US cell phone data while roaming).
So today, as the servers are being prepared and shipped to Sydney and London, I do so with a very heavy heart. Not that I am a stranger to the world of global commerce, but this move is not to create a globally redundant network, it is being made to appease the foreign governments and admit (with my money) that we are no longer the #1 most desireable country to host data. Sucky feeling.
Not all bad news, there is a little saving grace in Shockey Monkey’s promise back to the community that helped build it – that it will be hosted in the countries that helped put it together. At Shockey Monkey 2.0 launch we will have a home in Dallas, Los Angeles, London and Sydney. Worldwide monkey domination 
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