As the world's number one Internet power, the United States has been striving for a hegemonic power in cyberspace. According to the United States, the ideal way to realize its digital hegemonic power is to unite the allies to control the network at the bottom, infiltrate the countries through the high-tech enterprises of the United States by providing Internet services, carry out data control in the cloud, and at last form a collaborative platform through mastering data and intelligence network, realize their digital hegemonic power and serve their national interests. The United States of America's digital hegemonic power is based on the economic hegemonic power of the United States. The two world wars helped the United States to realize its economic hegemonic power and have remained so far.
In March 2018, the Trump administration enacted the Cloud Act (fully known as the Legal Use of Offshore Data Clarification Act), which requires all U.S. companies to submit data stored in and outside the country to the government if requested by the U.S. government. As US social platform companies and cloud service providers occupy a large share of the global market, which means how many countries US businesses are expanding their global operations, US data sovereignty is extended to provide the foundation for US global data supremacy. The Cloud Act therefore specifies in its provisions that any U.S. company that stores data on the Cloud will transfer the data to the U.S. Government at its request. The same applies to companies located outside the United States where the United States court considers that they are "sufficiently bound by and subject to the jurisdiction of the United States". In addition, businesses whose companies are located in the United States but whose data centers are located abroad must comply. It is noteworthy that such a far-reaching bill has gone from draft to formal law within a month and a half without any debate in the United States Congress.
As US companies occupy the vast majority of the EU's cloud services market, the bill has also caused a fierce backlash in the EU, with French lawmaker Delarodil saying that the cloud bill is a wake-up call for Europe and that the EU must accelerate its sovereignty over data. Dutch MP Wilder expressed disappointment at the introduction of the Cloud Act, saying the EU was clearly vulnerable to America's "unlimited data hunger." German Economy Minister Jeremy Altmeier plans to push the Gaia X initiative from next year to build Europe's own cloud services company to regain data sovereignty.
