European Digital Independence News

European search engines Qwant and Ecosia said on Wednesday that they have both started serving search queries through an index they developed together, Staan, which aims to be a cheaper, more privacy-focused alternative to Google and Bing.

Last year, French privacy-focused search engine Qwant struck a joint venture with German non-profit search engine Ecosia, to develop a European search index. Called European Search Perspective (EUSP), the JV now aims to serve around 50% of French queries and 33% of German queries by the end of the year.

Qwant said it is using the new index to power some of its features, like AI summaries for search, and Ecosia has plans to add some AI features soon to its platform, too.

EUSP is also in talks with companies to spur the adoption of its index for enabling search within apps. Notably, it is targeting chatbots, presenting Staan as a cheaper alternative to Google and Bing.

“If you’re using ChatGPT or any other AI chatbot, they all do knowledge grounding with web search […] our index can power deep research and AI summary features. Google and Bing’s solutions are also pricey, and our index can offer power search features at a tenth of the cost,” Christian Kroll, CEO of Ecosia, told TechCrunch.

EUSP, like Proton, is pushing to develop a European tech stack that doesn’t rely on technology from the U.S. or China.

“The timing could not be more urgent. The outcome of the 2024 U.S. election has reminded European policymakers and innovators just how exposed Europe remains when it comes to core digital infrastructure. Much of Europe’s search, cloud, and AI layers are built on American Big Tech stacks, putting entire sectors – from journalism to climate tech – at the mercy of political or commercial agendas,” the companies said in a statement.

Kroll added that through this index, combined with European privacy laws, EUSP can offer a more privacy-friendly search solution as compared to its U.S. counterparts.

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.ca/post/47039235

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.ca/post/47038761

As organizations are looking to reclaim their digital sovereignty, IONOS and Nextcloud are building the fully featured office suite “Nextcloud Workspace”: a powerful Microsoft 365 alternative. As long-standing partners, we have the expertise to enable large companies and organizations with an all-round office suite as European answer to US products. Announced at the Nextcloud Summit earlier this month, this collaboration for digitally sovereign office software that meets the highest data protection requirements will launch in 2025.

To meet the rigorous needs of public institutions and enterprises, Nextcloud Workspace will integrate a full range of collaboration tools, including file storage and sharing, document editing, email, calendaring, video conferencing, chat, and AI-powered productivity features. Of course, this offering will be fully GDPR compliant and securely hosted in Europe.

Organizations can trust Nextcloud to deliver a fully integrated office and collaboration suite, thanks to the company’s experience in creating the world’s leading private cloud platform. IONOS, Europe’s largest cloud and hosting provider, is the ideal partner to ensure full GDPR compliance and protection from US legal exposure. Hosting will be managed exclusively in Germany, at IONOS’ extensive network of data centers.

The Danish Ministry of Digitization is to completely abandon Microsoft in the coming months and use Linux instead of Windows and switch from Office 365 to LibreOffice. Minister Caroline Stage (Moderaterne) announced this in an interview with the daily newspaper Politiken. It comes just a few days after the country's two largest municipalities initiated similar steps. This summer, half of the ministry's employees will be equipped with Linux and LibreOffice. If everything goes as expected, the entire ministry will be free of Microsoft by the fall, Politiken summarizes.

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.today/post/27182683

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/28006908

Schleswig-Holstein, one of Germany’s 16 states, on Wednesday confirmed plans to move tens of thousands of systems from Microsoft Windows to Linux. The announcement follows previously established plans to migrate the state government off Microsoft Office in favor of open source LibreOffice.

cross-posted from: https://lemm.ee/post/60481720

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.ca/post/41819102

cross-posted from: https://lemm.ee/post/62802718

The CLOUD Act allows federal law enforcement to compel U.S.-based technology companies via warrant or subpoena to provide requested data stored on servers regardless of whether the data are stored in the U.S. or on foreign soil.

cross-posted from: https://lemm.ee/post/60483272

cross-posted from: https://lemm.ee/post/60461323

https://archive.ph/X5rh6

cross-posted from: https://lemm.ee/post/64835407

Arjen Lubach, a popular Dutch comedian, author, music producer and television presenter asks if Trump can flatten the Netherlands by leveraging our dependence on American cloud, and answers: yes. Funny but scary.

Alternative non-YouTube links:

• https://yewtu.be/watch?v=uoTMwX_clDs

• https://www.rtl.nl/tv/fragmenten/video/b79fd594-ce42-4364-bd8b-83d01bea90a2/kan-trump-nederland-digitaal-platleggen (⚠️ DRM)

cross-posted from: https://lemm.ee/post/64837536

cross-posted from: https://lemm.ee/post/64750194

• President Donald Trump on Friday said he is “recommending a straight 50% Tariff on the European Union” after complaining that trade negotiations have stalled.

• The EU “has been very difficult to deal with,” Trump wrote. “Our discussions with them are going nowhere!”

The European Union, which was formed for the primary purpose of taking advantage of the United States on TRADE, has been very difficult to deal with. Their powerful Trade Barriers, Vat Taxes, ridiculous Corporate Penalties, Non-Monetary Trade Barriers, Monetary Manipulations, unfair and unjustified lawsuits against Americans Companies, and more, have led to a Trade Deficit with the U.S. of more than $250,000,000 a year, a number which is totally unacceptable. Our discussions with them are going nowhere! Therefore, I am recommending a straight 50% Tariff on the European Union, starting on June 1, 2025. There is no Tariff if the product is built or manufactured in the United States. Thank you for your attention to this matter!

cross-posted from: https://lemm.ee/post/66597485

How long did it take Big Tech to pay off all their fines? A visual report from Proton AG.

cross-posted from: https://lemm.ee/post/66658031

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.nz/post/24112791

Trump is driving European governments to Microsoft alternatives: What Germany, France, Denmark, the Netherlands, Switzerland and Austria are planning.

With Ukraine's cold position, rapprochement with Russia, and its tariff policy, US President Donald Trump has startled the Europeans – and fueled the discussion about digital sovereignty. The risks of dependence on American tech companies have suddenly moved up on the political agenda, not only in Berlin, but also in other European capitals.

The discussion has many facets, because US companies such as Microsoft, AWS, Google, Oracle, Broadcom and OpenAI dominate in numerous areas of IT, from hardware to cloud services to operating systems and (AI) applications. In some segments, however, Chinese suppliers such as Lenovo and Huawei also have a strong position, just like the Europeans themselves, for example with ASML or SAP.

An IT world without dependencies on third parties would not be conducive to productivity and prosperity and anyway unrealistic, after all, there is hardly any know-how for the increasingly complex products in hardly any company. But the dependence on Microsoft's software and cloud services is particularly concerned about many European politicians. If the company is forced to shut down cloud services like 365 due to orders from the US government, the impact would be drastic: ministries and agencies with 365 subscriptions could not even chat or email from now on.

If Microsoft no longer provide security updates, sooner or later all users of Windows and the "On-Premise" (i.e. on customer hardware instead of the cloud) ongoing variants of Office and Exchange got into trouble. Microsoft's plan to offer Offices only in the cloud in the future puts additional pressure on Europeans. And the switch to other providers is complicated, among other things, by the fact that management applications such as e-file programs are interwoven with Microsoft Office.

Archive : https://archive.ph/2025.04.30-111200/https://www.heise.de/hintergrund/Wie-europaeische-Staaten-ihre-Abhaengigkeit-von-Microsoft-reduzieren-wollen-10365345.html

cross-posted from: https://lemm.ee/post/67100400

Tracking code that Meta [USA based owners of Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp etc. - Tad] and Russia-based Yandex embed into millions of websites is de-anonymizing visitors by abusing legitimate Internet protocols, causing Chrome and other browsers to surreptitiously send unique identifiers to native apps installed on a device, researchers have discovered. Google says it's investigating the abuse, which allows Meta and Yandex to convert ephemeral web identifiers into persistent mobile app user identities.