alt Hacker NewsTheir idea is that the EU cloud's corporate structure is completely independent, so AWS US isn't a parent company' so the CLOUD Act doesn't apply. They aren't a local subsidiary, they are an independent company licensing the AWS tech stack to operate fully independently on their own hardware - which just happens to also have a license to the AWS name.
It's a rather clever idea, and it essentially prevents EU government organisations from excluding them from tenders by requiring EU-based ownership. It obviously won't convince anyone with half a brain that they are genuinely independent, but the government lawyers are going to have a really hard time writing tenders in a way which excludes them from participating.
> Their idea is that the EU cloud's corporate structure is completely independent, so AWS US isn't a parent company'
I'm not sure this is actually the idea, it still isn't so in practice for sure, I'm not sure where this misconception comes from.
The Dutch Ministry of Justice and Security memo says the Dutch government asked AWS who ultimately owns AWS European Sovereign Cloud GmbH and AWS Luxembourg. According to that memo, AWS stated that both are indirectly owned by Amazon.com, Inc, and this is all public information: https://open.overheid.nl/documenten/36acf7a6-1ea3-401e-86ad-...
Besides, it doesn't really matter who is the parent or where it geographically is located, 18 U.S.C. § 2713 states this:
> [...] regardless of whether such communication, record, or other information is located within or outside of the United States.
It'd be a clever idea if it was actually 100% independent, but then it also wouldn't make sense for AWS/Amazon to do, it'd have to be actually independent then, not this weird mix-match of "some stuff in the US and some in EU" which they seem to be aiming for currently.