Yes, I would not have thought countries gets much smaller than Iceland! :)

Small countries are a poor choice for many reasons, not least because too much can change too quickly and it does not require much capital (monetary or political) to capture such a state. Though, obviously, they can be useful for redundancy.

That said, it could be the author meant the list more as optimization criteria rather than a firm checklist. In which case, both the strongly-independently wealthy Norway and the politically liberal and neutral Sweden, are not bad choices.

Oh, I agree, it's not so much that either country is a bad choice per se. And pointing out that a country subject to various bilateral treaties might provide problems down the road is also fair.

Just thought i'd point it out for those that might not know about their degree of international collaboration.

However, especially Sweden is ambiguous at best in my opinion, given their recently enacted strong wiretapping laws. They might not be a problem yet, but they provide the basis for future trouble.

I disagree with the .sg suggestion too. Singapore is an ACTA signatory and the government is in discussions with the MPAA for tougher IP legislation (http://www.channelnewsasia.com/stories/singaporelocalnews/vi...).

Not to mention it's a "small" country (you can't get much smaller than an island)

Agreed, the author is clearly unfamiliar with Singapore - it's a highly authoritarian country.