All the revelations are starting to hurt the companies where it counts, in the bottom line

Nov 1, 2013 09:50 GMT  ·  By

Google and Yahoo are quite upset over the revelations that the NSA went far beyond what the law and the PRISM program allowed it and spied on their internal communications. And if they're not, they should be.

The original report from the Washington Post details how two Google engineers "exploded in profanity" when told about the spying on their data centers. Google put out a strong statement, saying it was "outraged" at the spying.

But these may all be for show; we can't know for sure what's going on. Google and all the other companies said to be involved in the PRISM program denied giving the NSA any type of direct or indirect on-demand access to user data. But, in the leaked documents, the NSA seemed pretty confident it could get anything it wanted.

Actions speak louder than words and, it seems, tech companies are already taking action. Google started working on encrypting all inter data center communications a few months ago, ahead of the recent revelations. Who knows whether it was because it suspected it was being spied on or just being cautious, but it's now clear that the move was desperately needed.

Behind closed doors, the New York Times reports, tech companies are increasingly at odds with the intelligence community. The betrayals are being felt, particularly since the escalating revelations are increasingly threatening the one thing all these companies care about, namely their revenue.

Nothing much has happened yet, but there's an increasing mistrust of American companies. Brazil is pushing for legislation to mandate all data on its citizens be kept in data centers in the country. Others are thinking of doing the same.

Google, Facebook, Yahoo, Microsoft, and all the rest are starting to feel the pressure. They may not be that upset if a few people are "outraged" that these companies share their private data with the NSA. But they are going to be upset if they start losing money.