Japan leads the world in creating a legal and security environment that’s conducive to cloud computing, with Australia, the United States, Germany and Singapore not far behind, according to a global scorecard the software industry group BSA released Thursday.

The report focused on countries’ legal and regulatory protections related to cybersecurity and intellectual property, as well as nations’ broadband capacity and harmonization with international laws and standards.

The United States moved from fourth to third place between the 2012 and 2013 rankings. The report dinged the United States for not adhering closely enough to free trade principles and for some opaqueness about online intellectual property protections.

“The U.S. has signed all of the relevant international agreements, and a strong enforcement culture is in place,” the report stated. “However, multiple conflicting court decisions leave considerable legal uncertainty about what constitutes an online copyright breach.”

The full report is available here.

Former federal Chief Information Officer Vivek Kundra has called for a “global Cloud First policy,” that would include a set of common standards that would enable nations and businesses to easily share cloud-based data.