How U.S. Spying Is Killing Free Trade

All around the world, governments are devising creative ways to torment American technology companies. It started last year after leaks revealed that the U.S. government basically uses services like Google and Facebook as arms of the surveillance state. In response, some countries -- including Germany, Brazil and now France -- have toyed with the idea of forcing Internet companies to route traffic or store data locally.

As public policy, this is inept both technologically and economically. As symbolism, it illustrates the damage that overly ambitious espionage can cause -- and reinforces, yet again, how insecure the foundations of the digital marketplace really are.