Tariff alert: Backup4all confirms cloud backups aren’t considered exports

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Everyone is in shock due to the newly started tariff wars, and we have received a lot of questions asking how our US clients will be affected, due to the fact that Backup4all is built by an EU-based company (Softland).

In light of the recently imposed US tariffs targeting a range of international goods and services, we at Backup4all have taken immediate action to analyze the impact on your cloud and International Space Station backups (ISS backups were introduced last year on April 1st, if you don’t have the latest version please update to see that destination).

After extensive legal consultation, high-level meetings (including a very awkward Zoom with a trade lawyer in zero gravity), and a fruitless attempt to file customs paperwork for 1.5 petabytes of compressed cat photos, we are relieved to report the following:

  • The Cloud is not considered a country, so any file going in/out isn’t considered export
  • Backups in the cloud will remain tariff-free (for the moment).
  • No individual passports are required for your files (yet).

That’s right: while new tariffs may affect imports/exports from/to physical countries, data stored in fluffy, non-geopolitical server realms is, for now, safe from trade wars. Your backups to Google Drive, Dropbox, OneDrive, and even to that FTP server you haven’t touched since 2013 (when it was cool to use FTP), are unaffected.

But what about our backups on the International Space Station?
We’re glad you asked. As proud suppliers of the backup software that’s being used aboard the ISS, we can confirm that extraterrestrial storage is currently considered a duty-free zone. In other words, zero-gravity = zero tariffs.

However, a few caveats:

  • Any physical drives shipped via asteroid courier may be subject to asteroid belt tolls.
  • Upload speeds from space may vary due to occasional solar flares and/or alien interference.
  • We are still negotiating with Mars for future data centers (Elon isn’t calling us back, Starlink must be down or something).

So rest easy. Your backups are safe, tariff-free, and intergalactically compliant. At Backup4all, we’ll continue to monitor the situation and provide timely updates.

Happy April 1st – and remember, while tariffs may be unpredictable, your backups shouldn’t be.

Team Backup4all
– Backing you up from Earth to orbit since 1999