joindns4eu is not dns4eu. Its effectively a marketing website, probably subcontracted to a design agency. It has nothing to do with the actual operation of dns4eu.
I'd prefer that they weren't spending funds on using US infrastructure for their marketing (and hopefully this publicity will effect a change), but its a real stretch to make out that it in any way undermines the mission of dns4eu - namely providing a public resolver that isn't slurping up request data for their own purposes.
Nonetheless, the fact that a digital sovereignty project ends up using American infrastructure for its website and email is a pretty good demonstration of how deeply embedded reliance on the US is.
It does not seem to be working though. They could have used EU infrastructure for their for their email and website, and did not bother to. Its not as though there is no alternative.
I suspect people pushing to host websites in the EU will default to using American DNS and email providers etc.
The real problem is lack of motivation, not lack of options and it is a lot easier for people to keep on using Cloudflare and Gmail and AWS etc.
I'm sure if they did that someone here would complain about which routers they're using, or where where did the processors for those routers get manufactured, or where did the rare earth metals for those processors come from, or which company owns the mine extracting machines, or...
Choices of things like routers are limited, and even more so further up the chain which is also less visible.
On the other hand there are lots of good options for hosting a website or email in the EU (and even more if you are also happy to host elsewhere in Europe).
I don't disagree that there are valid EU alternatives for hosting, I'm saying it's irrelevant to their goal.
Allow me to make an analogy: imagine someone switching to Linux desktop and then installing Slack or Discord because they can't be bothered to convince other people to use Matrix. Is that completely unacceptable or is it a healthy compromise and still a win overall?
It's also highly unlikely that the group of people working on that DNS resolver is the same group of people that made a website for it, as these sorts of sites tend to be outsourced to some tiny web design companies. One of my previous jobs was in one of those tiny companies and a part of my responsiblity was to maintain some of Eurotunnel's servers, so would you blame me for their decision to rebrand themselves to far less descriptive Getlink which happened around the same time?
> I don't disagree that there are valid EU alternatives for hosting, I'm saying it's irrelevant to their goal.
It is irrelevant to their narrow goal, but it is very much relevant to their broader goal.
> Allow me to make an analogy: imagine someone switching to Linux desktop and then installing Slack or Discord because they can't be bothered to convince other people to use Matrix.
That is a very different situation. There are no real barriers to an organisation choosing to host its websites where ever they choose.
> It's also highly unlikely that the group of people working on that DNS resolver is the same group of people that made a website for it,
That is often true, but in this case it implies management do not understand, or are not committed to the underlying goals. It would be very easy to have insisted that all hosting is in Europe.
> One of my previous jobs was in one of those tiny companies and a part of my responsiblity was to maintain some of Eurotunnel's servers, so would you blame me for their decision to rebrand themselves to far less descriptive Getlink
You're not gonna succeed at your core business if you handicap yourselves with subpar products. What I would give to use zoom, google docs, outlook instead of the current european ones at work.
Airbus used american products and customers to get big and then built european alternatives, it just makes a ton more sense.
EU was cozy with US cloud operators which built and ran datacetners in the EU soil. They have special agreements for data isolation and data travel limitationss (i.e.: Data can't leave the said datacenter or the continent).
After the last election, they decided that it's not safe in the long term, and started to build their own infra. It'll take some time.
Yes exactly. It's hard to understate the shock that happened to the deep trust that existed between the EU and US. And I don't think that will return even if the US changes back. Trust is hard to build and easy to lose.
True, but why did they trust the US so much in the first place? It is not as though no-one has ever warned of the dangers before this year!
Given that one of the EU's aims is to be a peer to the US and China (the term I recall them using is a "multi-polar world") they should not be reliant on anyone to this extent.
> True, but why did they trust the US so much in the first place? It is not as though no-one has ever warned of the dangers before this year!
Similar background, a long history of standing together (e.g. the war, marshall plans, NATO etc)
Trump is pretty unprecedented, even though some previous presidents weren't very friendly with the EU (like the "Freedom Fries" issue under George W Bush, when France opposed the invasion of Iraq - which eventually ended up based on complete lies so the French were totally right).
> Given that one of the EU's aims is to be a peer to the US and China (the term I recall them using is a "multi-polar world") they should not be reliant on anyone to this extent.
True. Europe has been too comfortable with the situation. It's also because it's hard to get everyone aligned. Politics is very nation-aligned, not EU-aligned.
I would call it laziness as it’s certainly possible to run a mail and Web service at a EU hoster or cloud. It‘s also sad and telling that they don‘t (care?) and even dishonest, as they don’t list the providers as subcontractors in their privacy statement.
Well spotted. Cloudflare at least should be mentioned as they can collect IP addresses which are PII. They also load scripts from Google, again exposing, at a minimum, IP addresses.
There is a reference to their cookie policy but to link to it.
Honestly this "deep dive" borders on self loathing
"oh but their email is not in the EU" ok it's a fair criticism, but for some people nothing is good enough
Then we wonder why nothing goes ahead in the EU because once you do something it gets flooded with tire kickers and bikeshedders criticizing everything
I'd prefer that they weren't spending funds on using US infrastructure for their marketing (and hopefully this publicity will effect a change), but its a real stretch to make out that it in any way undermines the mission of dns4eu - namely providing a public resolver that isn't slurping up request data for their own purposes.