EU Slowly Dumping US Big Tech

Two-and-a-half million civil servants in France will ditch Zoom and Teams for a homegrown video conference system called Visio-Experts. Soldiers in Austria are using the open source office software, LibreOffice, to write reports after its military dropped Microsoft Office. Bureaucrats in the German state of Schleswig-Holsteina have turned to Nextcloud’s free software for their administrative work. They are also switching to open-source email – I’m assuming Tuta or Proton.

I’ve never heard of Visio-Expert, but I’ve used LibreOffice for over four years. It’s what I use to write this blog. I also backup all my data on my own simplified in-house server (and a key-chain flash drive should a fire consume my house) rather than on the cloud where it’s controlled by someone other than myself.

Around Europe, governments and institutions are seeking to reduce their use of digital services from U.S. Big Tech companies and turning to domestic or free alternatives. The push for “digital sovereignty” is gaining attention as the Trump administration strikes an increasingly belligerent posture toward the continent, highlighted by recent tensions over Greenland and fears that Silicon Valley could be bullied into cutting off access.

The objective is to put an end to the use of non-European solutions, and to guarantee the security and confidentiality of public electronic communications by relying on a powerful and sovereign tool. Europe is beginning to take its digital security and privacy seriously. Citizens, everywhere, should do the same.

Microsoft claims it is “focused on providing customers with greater choice, stronger data protection, and resilient cloud services — ensuring data stays in Europe, under European law, with robust security and privacy protections.” Yeah, right! Anyone can do a search to find out how often Microsoft has been guilty of violating its own standards. Free advice: forget Google and Bing, use Startpage. It’s more private.

Microsoft President, Brad Smith, stated, “Europe is the American tech sector’s biggest market after the United States itself. It all depends on trust. Trust requires dialogue.” Then quit sharing users data, quit requiring a Microsoft account to use Windows, quit forcing unwanted product ads on users, and delete all the built-in malware/spyware.

Simple fact is, with online services now mainly hosted in the cloud through data centers, everyone’s data is vulnerable; not just for those in Europe. It can also be cut off at any time, by Big Tech or Big Government, for whatever reason they state. Are you rich enough to sue if they do?

When home and office computing first started, it was all in-house, nothing went to the cloud because the digital cloud didn’t exist. You bought the hardware, you bought the software, it was self-contained, almost impossible to steal data, and worked for years on end. You created your own backups, which admittedly took time back then, but you controlled it. Yes, the cloud does provide the convenience of integrating multiple devices. However, you can do that at home. All it takes is a router/wifi with a functioning USB port, a USB hard drive, and file-sharing software for backups. It’s even accessible remotely.

Source used: Molly Quell, Associated Press