Germany is now banning tech companies that work with the NSA

As early as June last year, Techdirt noted that beyond the political fallout of NSA spying, there is a considerable risk that there will be serious economic consequences too. That’s because other countries are now aware that one way the NSA has been obtaining sensitive information is through US computer products that have secret backdoors added in some way. In that post, we mentioned that Sweden had banned the country’s public bodies from using Google Apps; it looks like Germany is going even further, as reported here in the international edition of the German newspaper Süddeutsche Zeitung: “Germany’s black-red “grand coalition” government has now tightened the rules for awarding sensitive public IT contracts. In cases of doubt, suspicious companies will now be excluded from such contracts. And companies now have to sign documents to the effect that no contracts or laws oblige them — nor can they be coerced — to pass on confidential data to foreign secret services or security authorities.”