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To the best of my knowledge, this is already too late. I remember reading through their FAQ and seeing that hence they now have a US-based owner, they are then

by q-base 4y ago

To the best of my knowledge, this is already too late. I remember reading through their FAQ and seeing that hence they now have a US-based owner, they are then within reach of US 3-letter agencies.

shafyy 4y ago
I can't find any info that they are owned by a US company. Can you link to a source?
- formerly_proven 4y ago
  Hetzner is owned by a holding company owned by Ensoxx and Ensoxx is Martin Hetzner's company as far as I can tell.
  - hnbad 4y ago
    That seems to be correct. My understanding (IANAL) of Schrems II is that the problem exists when a EU datacenter is under the direct or indirect control of a US company. Indirect in this case meaning operated by a EU company that is the subsidiary of a US company, as is the case with AWS, Google and Microsoft. Since the EU datacenters seem to be operated by EU companies and the US company is merely a sibling subsidiary of Ensoxx, which itself is also an EU company, this should provide sufficient isolation to prevent interference from US agencies short of direct sabotage or espionage (since the EU staff is not in the chain of command of the US company). So for a definitive answer you probably want your lawyers to talk to Hetzner's lawyers but at face value this is at least miles ahead of any US-based cloud provider, which in all honesty is still the default solution for most EU-based companies despite this ruling.
- q-base 4y ago
  From here: https://docs.hetzner.com/general/general-terms-and-conditions/data-privacy-faq/ https://docs.hetzner.com/general/general-terms-and-condition... Conclusion: In summary, you as a customer do have influence - to a certain extent - on shaping who has access to the data on your servers. EU and US authorities do have to follow the laws and legal procedures in requesting data. However, this may give you a false sense of security since some authorities have been known to stretch or violate agreements. If you require a web hosting company that has absolutely no connections to the USA, then unfortunately, we may no longer be the best choice for you. Since Hetzner US LLC is part of the Hetzner Group, there certainly is a connection. We hope that we have explained things clearly from our point of view using the two above case studies.
  - shafyy 4y ago
    Ok, but: "US authorities do not have direct access to your server or its content in the EU. US authorities have to comply with the regulations of the EU legislation.". So, because Hetzner is not owned by a US company, stuff like the CLOUD act doesn't apply to them. So, if you have a contract with the German entity of Hetzner and use a German server, you should be fine in terms of GDPR.
    - q-base 4y ago
      I think it depends on how you read the Schrems II ruling and how you read Hetzners words. Any of the big cloud providers can claim that they comply with EU legislation, but they also have to comply with US-legislation and if 3-letter agency wants to have some data from one of their subsidiaries in EU, then they can/will decide which contract to breach. I read Hetzners statements as being that they can no longer guarantee that they will not be forced to do the same - but that can be my reading of their statement that is wrong. If I already had them as hosting-partner for a solution that fell under Schrems II, I would have them confirm this, to be sure.
      - deleted 4y ago
        [deleted]
    - zelphirkalt 4y ago
      But what does "direct" mean here? Indirect could still be ordering them to give US authorities data and to keep silent about being ordered. Maybe (hopefully) that would be against EU regulations?
      - fulafel 4y ago
        Lots of EU countries have their intelligence agencies doing close cooperation with five eyes (NSA and equivalent agencies of the smaller countries) and willing to turn a blind eye or actively collude in compromising security of IT infra in the EU. Or going further, a oft reported pattern is that when they want to spy on their own citizens but are forbidden by law, they ask the foreign allies to do the dirty work of spying on their soil and pass back the intelligence.
codethief 4y ago
Hetzner Online GmbH and Hetzner Cloud GmbH are fully owned (resp. majority-owned) by ENSoXX Holding AG of which Martin Hetzner is the CEO and which seems to be the parent company[0]. I cannot find any indication in the publicly available documents that any US company (or any other company for that matter) holds more than a 25% share in ENSoXX Holding AG. (25% is the reporting threshold.) In the 2022 annual financial statement they do mention expanding to the US, though they don't go into the legal details. As the link posted in the cousin comment mentions, though: > Hetzner US LLC, as a subsidiary of Hetzner Online GmbH, provides data center services within the USA for the parent company, Hetzner Online.[2] So there is no US owner. [0]: https://www.northdata.de/Hetzner+Online+GmbH,+Gunzenhausen/Amtsgericht+Ansbach+HRB+6089 https://www.northdata.de/Hetzner+Online+GmbH,+Gunzenhausen/A... [1]: https://www.unternehmensregister.de/ https://www.unternehmensregister.de/ (enter "ENSoXX Holding AG" in the text field) [2]: https://docs.hetzner.com/general/general-terms-and-conditions/data-privacy-faq/ https://docs.hetzner.com/general/general-terms-and-condition...
- PaywallBuster 4y ago
  Quite impressive the numbers they're doing 78M profit on 290M revenue (See [0] above) _ edited figures _
  - codethief 4y ago
    I see 78M on 290M EUR but yeah, still very impressive!
  - yread 4y ago
    It's insane that they are so cheap and they could still have a third lower prices and not lose money somehow
    - openplatypus 4y ago
      Makes you wonder how much you are overpaying on AWS.
    - wongarsu 4y ago

by q-base 4y ago

To the best of my knowledge, this is already too late. I remember reading through their FAQ and seeing that hence they now have a US-based owner, they are then within reach of US 3-letter agencies.

shafyy 4y ago

I can't find any info that they are owned by a US company. Can you link to a source?

formerly_proven 4y ago
Hetzner is owned by a holding company owned by Ensoxx and Ensoxx is Martin Hetzner's company as far as I can tell.
- hnbad 4y ago
  That seems to be correct. My understanding (IANAL) of Schrems II is that the problem exists when a EU datacenter is under the direct or indirect control of a US company. Indirect in this case meaning operated by a EU company that is the subsidiary of a US company, as is the case with AWS, Google and Microsoft. Since the EU datacenters seem to be operated by EU companies and the US company is merely a sibling subsidiary of Ensoxx, which itself is also an EU company, this should provide sufficient isolation to prevent interference from US agencies short of direct sabotage or espionage (since the EU staff is not in the chain of command of the US company). So for a definitive answer you probably want your lawyers to talk to Hetzner's lawyers but at face value this is at least miles ahead of any US-based cloud provider, which in all honesty is still the default solution for most EU-based companies despite this ruling.
q-base 4y ago
From here: https://docs.hetzner.com/general/general-terms-and-conditions/data-privacy-faq/ https://docs.hetzner.com/general/general-terms-and-condition... Conclusion: In summary, you as a customer do have influence - to a certain extent - on shaping who has access to the data on your servers. EU and US authorities do have to follow the laws and legal procedures in requesting data. However, this may give you a false sense of security since some authorities have been known to stretch or violate agreements. If you require a web hosting company that has absolutely no connections to the USA, then unfortunately, we may no longer be the best choice for you. Since Hetzner US LLC is part of the Hetzner Group, there certainly is a connection. We hope that we have explained things clearly from our point of view using the two above case studies.
- shafyy 4y ago
  Ok, but: "US authorities do not have direct access to your server or its content in the EU. US authorities have to comply with the regulations of the EU legislation.". So, because Hetzner is not owned by a US company, stuff like the CLOUD act doesn't apply to them. So, if you have a contract with the German entity of Hetzner and use a German server, you should be fine in terms of GDPR.
  - q-base 4y ago
    I think it depends on how you read the Schrems II ruling and how you read Hetzners words. Any of the big cloud providers can claim that they comply with EU legislation, but they also have to comply with US-legislation and if 3-letter agency wants to have some data from one of their subsidiaries in EU, then they can/will decide which contract to breach. I read Hetzners statements as being that they can no longer guarantee that they will not be forced to do the same - but that can be my reading of their statement that is wrong. If I already had them as hosting-partner for a solution that fell under Schrems II, I would have them confirm this, to be sure.
    - deleted 4y ago
      [deleted]
  - zelphirkalt 4y ago
    But what does "direct" mean here? Indirect could still be ordering them to give US authorities data and to keep silent about being ordered. Maybe (hopefully) that would be against EU regulations?
    - fulafel 4y ago
      Lots of EU countries have their intelligence agencies doing close cooperation with five eyes (NSA and equivalent agencies of the smaller countries) and willing to turn a blind eye or actively collude in compromising security of IT infra in the EU. Or going further, a oft reported pattern is that when they want to spy on their own citizens but are forbidden by law, they ask the foreign allies to do the dirty work of spying on their soil and pass back the intelligence.

codethief 4y ago

Hetzner Online GmbH and Hetzner Cloud GmbH are fully owned (resp. majority-owned) by ENSoXX Holding AG of which Martin Hetzner is the CEO and which seems to be the parent company[0]. I cannot find any indication in the publicly available documents that any US company (or any other company for that matter) holds more than a 25% share in ENSoXX Holding AG. (25% is the reporting threshold.) In the 2022 annual financial statement they do mention expanding to the US, though they don't go into the legal details. As the link posted in the cousin comment mentions, though: > Hetzner US LLC, as a subsidiary of Hetzner Online GmbH, provides data center services within the USA for the parent company, Hetzner Online.[2] So there is no US owner. [0]: https://www.northdata.de/Hetzner+Online+GmbH,+Gunzenhausen/Amtsgericht+Ansbach+HRB+6089 https://www.northdata.de/Hetzner+Online+GmbH,+Gunzenhausen/A... [1]: https://www.unternehmensregister.de/ https://www.unternehmensregister.de/ (enter "ENSoXX Holding AG" in the text field) [2]: https://docs.hetzner.com/general/general-terms-and-conditions/data-privacy-faq/ https://docs.hetzner.com/general/general-terms-and-condition...

PaywallBuster 4y ago
Quite impressive the numbers they're doing 78M profit on 290M revenue (See [0] above) _ edited figures _
- codethief 4y ago
  I see 78M on 290M EUR but yeah, still very impressive!
- yread 4y ago
  It's insane that they are so cheap and they could still have a third lower prices and not lose money somehow
  - openplatypus 4y ago
    Makes you wonder how much you are overpaying on AWS.
  - wongarsu 4y ago