Europe is finished with American Large Tech. Well, sort of. Since President Donald Trump’s cluttered second administration began last year, concerned governments and companies across the continent have accelerated plans to end their near-total dependence on technology from U.S. companies.
In addition to political declarations, national technology development in Europe and multi-million-dollar additional funding, WIRED analysis documented dozens of public appearances companies, governments, non-governmental organizations and educational institutions are moving away from American technology companies in favor of open source solutions or local alternatives. This is probably the tip of the iceberg.
“The Trump administration’s aggressive policies attacking international law, as well as the EU and democratic principles, have raised several alarm bells,” says Marietje Schaake, a non-resident fellow at Stanford University’s Cyber Policy Center and former member of the European Parliament.
These movements are widespread and growing. Last week, the European Commission announced its official long-term report plans rely less on American technology. European Parliament yes switched the default search engine on your devices from Google to the French alternative Qwant. Thousands of French government employees are using their own open-source office software – dubbed LaSuite – as officials look to “free themselves” from dependence on US tech companies. An offer of open source documents from several European technology companies, the so-called Euro Officeis scheduled to launch soon. Cities in the Netherlands, France and Germany are moving away from Microsoft Office and Google Docs
WIRED compiled publicly known cases of European Large Tech entities abandoning U.S.-based Large Tech entities. (Click on the arrows to scroll through the instance timeline below or view them here Google Sheet or Proton sheet).
While many of the “digital sovereignty” plans were introduced before Trump’s second term, the impact of U.S. actions is often cited as an urgent driving force for change sanctions against officials associated with the International Criminal Court. (The court itself has ended moving away from Microsoft technology).
Europe’s long list of other concerns include the lack of control that governments and businesses have over their own data; changing international relations; dependence on the technology of a compact number of companies; potential access to data under the US CLOUD Act and FISA; and the relationship between Large Tech companies and the Trump administration is closer than ever. “Citizens, companies and organizations are excited to take their digital future into their own hands,” says Schaake. “Untangled with billionaire interests and Trump’s policies.”