The Great Untangling, part one: Why should you stop using US services?

This is part one of my series: “The Great Untangling”, the series in which I document my journey away from US tech. This first post answers why I do it—and why I think you should too. In the next post, I will write about my journey. I’ve invested quite some time into my untangling, and I hope publishing about my journey will help you make the switch more easily.

This is by no means an exhaustive list. Any one of those reasons below should be enough to act. That I have to limit how many I list should give you pause.

1—Trust and Data Safety

As we’ve seen repeatedly by now, trust in the US administration and in US institutions is misplaced. You can no longer rely on the US adhering to its laws and promises. Additionally, the transatlantic agreement to handle data safely, protect it, and not abuse it is under attack by Trump.¹

Then there is the US CLOUD Act.^{2, 3} It gives US authorities the legal basis to access all data stored on servers belonging to a US company, regardless of its physical location. We must expect the US government to access whatever data they see fit, including that of EU government institutions.

Third, given the history of US espionage, encryption algorithms coming out of the US should not be trusted. Their source has to be verified independently. This includes those used in WhatsApp and iMessage.

2—Reliability and Coercion

By using US services, you are making yourself vulnerable to its current Clown and Commander in Chief. What makes you think he won’t hold your, or your company’s, data hostage as a bargaining chip in negotiations? He did it with private-sector satellite images Ukraine needs to defend its civilian population from Russian aggression.⁴

Additionally, the Trump administration threatened sanctions on the ICC (International Criminal Court) for a judgement on Israel’s Prime Minister they disagree with. The court stores essentially all evidence on Microsoft Azure, making it vulnerable to the US.⁵ This further highlights the emergency that Europe’s dependence on US IT represents.

There are more examples of the US cutting off access to data already.^{6, 7} Why shouldn’t he do it with your AWS instance, Microsoft 365, or even Gmail accounts?

3—Competitiveness and Diversity

Some companies from the US are holding on to DEI,⁸ which is great, but many aren’t. Another way to improve DEI is to have a more diverse market, shared by more diverse companies from more places. Although this will not help minorities unfortunate enough to live in the US, at least it will improve diversity in general.

Europe has been asleep at the wheel in the IT sector for decades. While we are slowly gaining in some areas, we are still far, very far, behind in others. For example, we have no consumer-facing and user-friendly operating systems of our own, instead the entire continent relies on Windows and macOS—with few exceptions.

I am only aware of two projects—but hopefully, there are more—aiming to replace US software with trustworthy products. One, France’s National Gendarmerie (police) uses GendBuntu, an Ubuntu Linux-based OS, they develop domestically. Two, the state of Schleswig-Holstein in Germany is currently replacing all proprietary software with Open-Source-Software and aims to make the switch to Linux.^{9, 10}

Aside: When you look at these examples, you’ll notice they are likely UX nightmares, but at least they are safe from US extortionary threats. They can’t be cut off from their own data by a foreign government. I hope these efforts to replace proprietary software with Open-Source Software quickly shift from a tech-first to a design-driven decision-making structure.

4—(Neo-)Imperialism vs. Sovereignty

Last on this list, but perhaps most important: We should boycott countries that exhibit aggressive and imperialistic behaviour to protect and defend our democracy and values. We boycott Russia because they invaded Ukraine. And we should boycott the US while they wage trade-wars against democratic countries, or threaten to invade them.¹¹

Call to Action

As long as the default setup is to buy a Windows laptop or an iPad on Amazon and set it up with a Gmail, Outlook, or iCloud account, the US will remain dominant in consumer electronics. As long as the default for software development is GitHub and Visual Studio Code, the US will remain dominant in software development. As long as AWS and GoDaddy are the default for deploying web-sites and -services, the US will remain dominant.

We should make the effort to switch away from those defaults to support a more diverse and competitive, and global tech landscape. The result will be better software and services through competition from outside the US tech(-bro) bubble.

In my next post in this series, “The Great Untangling”, I will write about my journey. I’ve invested quite some time into my untangling, and I hope publishing about my journey will help you make the switch more easily.