Recently Microsoft has been ordered by the US government to turn over email data that is stored in an over seas data center. While I am not an expert on the US law or European law I do have some level of expertise on computer science and cloud computing, I have been following this case somewhat closely as the case can have far reaching affects on US based companies and the data they store in other countries.
Basically, the US court system has issued an order that cannot comply with as it would violate the EU Data Protection Act which specifies that personal data cannot be transferred outside of the European Economic Area [1]. Some argue, like the author of the following article [2], that Microsoft is doing so for the benefit of their customers and are motivated by ethical reasons. Whether Microsoft is doing it for ethical reasons though is irrelevant.
More than likely Microsoft is acting out of self interest more than anything. After all, if Microsoft turns over the information it will show two things, one is that US law trumps international law and another is that it will provide incentive to companies in other countries to not use US based companies to store their data even if the data is stored outside of the US as the US government would still be able to access it. Not only would this cause Microsoft to lose a lot of Azure customers, but also Amazon and many other cloud based solution providers. It would force European companies to seek companies that were either headquartered in Europe or in a country who's data protection laws agreed with the companies internal policies.
Now you may be thinking, it's not that big a deal it will only affect emails so there are not that many companies that are affected. In reality, the affects are much farther reaching as any US based international company will have to deal with the results of this court order as it would produce a serious breach of trust in even the most harmless web application.
[1]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Data_Protection_Act_1998
[2]: http://windowsitpro.com/paul-thurrotts-wininfo/microsoft-defies-court-order-will-not-give-emails-us-government
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