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Microsoft's ICC blockade: digital dependence comes at a cost
- chvid 1y agoWe need Europeans need to rid ourselves from American big tech used in government functions. This is simply unacceptable.
- ajsnigrutin 1y agoEU can't even solve some tracking cookies, how will they/we create an europeran (-alternative to-) google?
- immibis 1y agoThey did solve them. Whenever you click on a search result and get e cookie popup, you go back and try another one.
- ajsnigrutin 1y agoThat's not solved, that's a bothersome thing that wastes millions of man hours and does nothing in the end. Mandating browsers (preinstalled on devices sold in EU) auto-delete cookies on window close, and add a button to whitelist 1st party cookies on specific domains, would solve many more problems without wasting time with annoying popups.
- somanyphotons 1y agoIt's also the only way for the EU to jumpstart it's own silicon valley. Look at how silicon valley was bootstrapped through government expenditure.
- PaulHoule 1y agoI want to see: (1) an open source privacy first web browser engine funded by the EU and (2) EU to mandate interoperability in "chat" and video conferencing applications.
- charcircuit 1y agoChromium is already a suitable open source browser engine that a privacy focused browser product could be built on top of.
- monocasa 1y agoOr Firefox.
- jopsen 1y agoForking it and setting up the CI for all tests, monitoring performance regression, etc -- no thanks. Having worked on Firefox CI infrastructure years ago, it's a huge and complex setup. As I recall back then it was >100 compute hours per push. Fork it and keep synching in from upstream, sure that's easy. But are you an independent browser?
- hello_computer 1y agoweb is bursting with abuses. euros like to regulate. if they regulate & enforce-away the abuses, the browser could be made far far simpler.
- int_19h 1y ago> EU to mandate interoperability in "chat" and video conferencing applications. reply I rather suspect that this would come with mandatory encryption backdoors.
- megous 1y agoNo, I don't want EU tech VC oligarchy. I just want to avoid big tech SaaS regardless of where it's from. I've been quite happy with smaller local services for a loong time. Started using them in 2004 when I got my first website and aside from short try of gmail when it was still free, always used them.
- m463 1y agoAmericans would like the same thing. Just off the top of my head, accessing the IRS website (taxes) gets tracked by google. Windows keeps trying to pull everything online. Americans don't get separate apple app stores. It goes on and on.
- Andrex 1y agoHonestly, Microsoft needs to stay the hell away from the US Gov, too. https://arstechnica.com/security/2024/01/microsoft-network-breached-through-password-spraying-by-russian-state-hackers/ https://arstechnica.com/security/2024/01/microsoft-network-b...
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]
- jopsen 1y agoThe US and Europe is tightly integrated, this integration can be used as leveraged. Especially, since we've allowed the US to play the bigger brother in most of these relationships. But you can only use this in a big way once. And all parties have pretty much assumed the US would never use its leverage as Trump has been doing. The same way we dare invest in the US stock marked, because we're confident the US won't do a Cuba-style nationalization of private assets. Obviously, the orange man is gambling EU won't decouple from the US. He might be right, this probably isn't big enough. Decoupling all systems is expensive, it cheaper to wait 4 years. That said, the orange man did get EU defense investment -- the investments are just not being made in the US. Sadly, I don't think anyone will decouple, people still laugh at the idea of using LibreOffice.
- pjmlp 1y agoIf it is only four years, too many people are confident this administration is willing to bet losing elections.
- delusional 1y agoI can only imagine what's going to happen in 4 years. The current administration has opened a can of worms that is not easily closed. Once you start sending people to torture prisons, once you start defying lawful orders, people are going to be scared that this same power can be used against them. Imagine what you would do if you thought weakness could leave you no recourse if you were sent to the gulags? How ruthless and self serving would you get?
- pessimizer 1y agoImagine thinking the US just started sending people to torture prisons now. We had a worldwide network of black sites just to torture people, destroyed all the videotapes, pardoned all the torturers, and made the person who destroyed the tapes the head of the CIA a few years later. > once you start defying lawful orders, people are going to be scared that this same power can be used against them. I feel like people only born yesterday could say this. There has been a bipartisan push for an Executive unfettered by the legislature since 9/11, and extreme partisans just point at each other. You're both right.
- GoblinSlayer 1y agoUSA threatened to sanction dedollarization, it can sanction selfhosting for the same reason. Karim Khan's bank accounts were frozen too - that's not microsoft.
- karel-3d 1y agoYeah let's say "we need" instead of actually implementing :)
- gleenn 1y agoJust goes to show how short-sighted these political decisions have been. Politics shouldn't be wrapping itself around tech, the US is shrugging off a huge market and ally.
- palmotea 1y ago> Just goes to show how short-sighted these political decisions have been. Politics shouldn't be wrapping itself around tech, the US is shrugging off a huge market and ally. Which political decision? The one to prosecute a US ally, or the one to sanction the ICC? When someone decries something as "politics," there's often a problem where the analysis conveniently stops when the blame can be placed on the speaker's disfavored group.
- gleenn 1y agoSeems like we shouldn't be using tech to punish a foreign group who's job, at least at face value, is to help the world. If the ICC is doing so much harm to the US, fight legally. That's where the battle should be fought. Not ripping away some guy's email access.
- mlinhares 1y agoThat would mean having due process.
- palmotea 1y ago> Seems like we shouldn't be using tech to punish a foreign group who's job, at least at face value, is to help the world. Claims about "helping the world" are highly subjective and often bullshit (see the often-mocked tech company talk about "making the world a better place [by doing awful stuff like shoving targeted ads in people's faces]". > If the ICC is doing so much harm to the US, fight legally. That's where the battle should be fought. Not ripping away some guy's email access. What do you mean? Sanctions are "fight[ing] legally," literally.
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- cadamsdotcom 1y agoWill be waiting to see if anything changes.
- sebazzz 1y agoIf this isn't enough to cause a shock in European companies and governments, I don't know what would.
- username332211 1y ago[flagged]
- jopsen 1y agoYeah, the EU needs the US for leadership mostly :)
- patrakov 1y agoAnd I know: remote destruction of various tech, including pagers, laptops, routers, power plants, and experimental nuclear reactors. Still not enough? A law that mandates backdoors necessary to trigger the above in all exported tech.
- AJ007 1y agoCertainly the ICC would be using something more secure than Microsoft hosted email?
- jopsen 1y agoWhy? US is not the main threat. And even this case it's pretty obvious that they are under attack. If you run your own server, you might not know that you've been compromised.
- betaby 1y ago> If you run your own server, you might not know that you've been compromised. You may or may not if run your own server. In a case of the hosted solution you are absolutely can't know.
- im3w1l 1y agoThe US have the means to act against the ICC. They have a motive for doing so. The US has the Hague Invasion act. The US is currently performing a blockade against ICC. The US really is the main threat.
- 28304283409234 1y agoWhy not proton, or fastmail, or tuta. Some provider that resides in a country that does not have an "Hague Invasion Act" just in case the ICC investigates a US citizen. Maybe not the 'main threat', but most certainly a threat. Have been since 2002.
- qingcharles 1y agoThey have moved to using protonmail now, per a BBC article I read yesterday.
- runningmike 1y agoCould Microsoft deny the request from the US government? I guess not, but i am not familiar with US laws for US companies…
- scott_w 1y agoIf it’s a lawful request, no. They can fight it but it’s a fight under US law, so if the law says they have to do it then that’s the outcome.
- megous 1y agoYes. It would then be upon the government to do something about it, which would create some controversy, penalties for MS, and a political debate. Same for refusing orders. It may change nothing, like in this story: > One commander ordered a sapper to put two old women in > a certain house ... and to blow up the house with them. > The sapper refused ... The commander then ordered his > men to put the old women in the house and the evil deed > was done. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Al-Dawayima_massacre https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Al-Dawayima_massacre But people sometimes still do it.
- MarceliusK 1y agoMicrosoft (and other U.S.-based companies) are generally obligated to comply with government orders, even if the data is stored overseas
- pempem 1y agoTo me, the real question is in the last sentence of the post: "the question is, however, whether they are enterprise-ready, secure, and fully sovereign" The ICC is incredibly important, incredibly young and global. Shifting this to europe would not solve the problem. If the ICC was able to have a contract with a fully sovereign supplier, that would be a whole new can of worms. It would be a matter of time (hours? days?) until a fully sovereign corporation put its profits above its negative impact on people. More than that, how does an organization funded by a group of nations avoid the budget becoming politicized? The issue is complex and the silver bullet is hard to find.
- SllX 1y ago> The ICC is incredibly important, incredibly young and global. Shifting this to europe would not solve the problem. Well it’s incredibly young, but it is neither incredibly important seeing as how the premise of the court is suspect nor global seeing as how substantial portions of the globe have either not signed, not ratified, or withdrew their signature before ratification. I’ll give you “international”. You’re right though: any possible software vendor is theoretically subject to someone’s sanctions regime. If they want to uphold the independence of their institution, that’s probably more work for an internal IT department.
- anotheracc3 1y agoIs signing up to the ICC a bit like getting a bunch of CEOs and asking them to sign up to a fair tax on CEOs treaty.
- SllX 1y agoWell, I’m not a fan of analogies, but kind of, but in addition to asking them to sign up, all the biggest companies with the highest valuations got to sit it out, but retained powers to impose it on smaller companies that aren’t friends of theirs, and to step in and protect their friends from being subject to your hypothetical fair tax treaty.
- nimish 1y ago
- jmyeet 1y agoI had a conversation about 15 years ago where he told me about a book he was reading about the risk of anti-intellectualism in the US. I laughed it off. I think about this at least once a week now. What we've seen over the last 10 years in tech and politics is the rise of people who have absolutely no idea what they're doing and they wear their ignorance like a badge of honor. I've had so many conversations with crypto bros about how crypto doesn't really solve anything and NFTs are BS and DeFi is pushed by people who have no idea of why finance is the way it is or they're simply trying yet another rug pull. This is a fundamentally anti-intellectual position. What we've seen since January 20 is the absolute dumbest, most ignorant sycophants destroy things they simply don't understand and don't want to understand. Destroy USAID (as one example)? Foreign aid is a tool of US soft power, a key part of US foreign policy. That's not money for nothing. We're buying influence. Don't even get me started on tariffs. Again, it's fundamentally anti-intellectual. Part of me is glad to see how many people are waking up to the myth of meritocracy. By taking punitive yet performative action against the ICC for hurting Israel's feelings by saying true things does nothing but weaken US tech influence over Europe. it tells Europe that the US cannot be relied upon and an alternative needs to be found. Fun fact: the US has passed a law colloquially known as the Hage Invasion Act [1]. This not authorizes but requires the US to invade the Hague if the ICC ever detains and prosecutes any US service member or official or those of any ally. By itself it doesn't really matter but it's death by a thousand paper cuts and there are a thousand other small things that are pushing Europe to distance itself from the US. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Service-Members%27_Protection_Act https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Service-Members%27_Pr...
- Hikikomori 1y agoCarl Sagan and Isaac Asimov has written about it many years ago, but it has clearly accelerated. My hope is that's it's the last surges of Christianity/religion in a death spiral.
- matkoniecz 1y agoWhy you think it is religion based? And why you think it is specifically Christianity?
- bawolff 1y agoWhile i strongly disagree with the usa's sanctions on the ICC, i'm very surprised that the ICC has to rely on american cloud providers. It seems like a court, especially one dealing with international crimes where international esponage seems quite likely, should have in-house tech. It seems like being fully independent would be really important. Sort of in the same way i would expect e.g. the eu gov not to be dependent on a foreign cloud provider either (have no idea if they are or not)
- miohtama 1y agoLet's call it lessons learnt
- bawolff 1y agoGiven we are still here despite how bush treated the ICC, i'm not sure the lesson will be learned
- usrnm 1y agoIt is a lesson all right. Whether or not it's learnt remains to be seen
- spwa4 1y agoThe current prosecutor, Karim Khan, is the one that introduced the dependency on Microsoft platforms. He has not made any initiative to undo this, in fact as pointed out here, he's increasing that dependency further with internet services. So calling this lessons learnt makes no sense. He hasn't learnt his lesson and is not displaying any intention to start now (given that he comes from a British/Pakistani family of conservative party politicians, which is also a family of sex offenders, that seems about par for the course) It's weird how one needs to keep explaining to US and EU people: almost all governments do not take decisions based on how they'll affect people and/or the government involved. Different governments have different priorities. The decisions of the UN are targeted towards keeping their members happy and paying. The vast majority of governments worldwide are governments that were conquered by a group or even a family. These people see controlling government as a business and the business is to use control of the government to extract the maximum for that family. And joke all you want about Trump, it can be 1000x worse, and it generally is. The ICC isn't that bad, but it's pretty bad. If you want to know what the ICC is (and isn't) about, read about how they went about prosecuting a Dutch citizen (their host country). It reads like a Blackadder script. The guy was accused, the Dutch government threatened, suddenly the accusation got dropped, he got knighted by the Queen in a New Year ceremony, got a pay rise. The ICC got a new building. Google "DutchBat".
- jjoe 1y agoSurely there must be an uncensored, decentralized means for sending messages? What about banking...
- DrNosferatu 1y agoNot only we Europeans need to get rid of American weapons, but also of most American technologies?! And people talked about Huawei…
- SllX 1y agoTo be fair, the ICC isn’t a European court, at least on paper.
- rolandog 1y agoIt doesn't matter if it is or isn't. The whole point was accountability to each other. That went out the window with the "American Service-Members' Protection Act" (The Hague Invasion Act) [0]. Nothing screams "complicit in genocide" like attacking and cripling the institution investigating such crimes. I'm surprised there hasn't been more public outrage at what I think is the geopolitical equivalent of having a journalist killed. [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Service-Members%27_Protection_Act https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Service-Members%27_Pr...
- SllX 1y agoIt does matter, even excluding America, Russia and the PRC, none of which are signatories, as well as the other non-members: the world is a big place. The ICC has many signatories across the Americas, Asia, Africa and the Pacific. An international institution doesn’t automatically become a European one when America leaves the room. > Nothing screams "complicit in genocide" like attacking and cripling the institution investigating such crimes. The law you cited is clear. Don’t touch American service members and American service members won’t touch the court. Reasonable enough given we aren’t party to the court and will not be held subject to its jurisdiction.
- megous 1y agoYeah, clear law: "(b) Persons Authorized To Be Freed.--The authority of subsection (a) shall extend to the following persons: (2) Covered allied persons." That includes Nehterlands, which is a member of NATO. So US can snatch Dutch war criminal from Netherlands if US president likes the person or whatever? :) Very clear law with no weird implications. Addenum: I solely react to your claim that this law is very clear.
- computerthings 1y ago[dead]
- adolph 1y agoBasically you need to sovereign-balance your services over different regions. Also have a high available pool of people to replace arrestees. One reason the the court has been hamstrung is that it relies heavily on contractors and non-governmental organizations. Those businesses and groups have curtailed work on behalf of the court because they were concerned about being targeted by U.S. authorities, according to current and former ICC staffers. Microsoft, for example, cancelled Khan’s email address, forcing the prosecutor to move to Proton Mail, a Swiss email provider, ICC staffers said. His bank accounts in his home country of the U.K. have been blocked. https://apnews.com/article/icc-trump-sanctions-karim-khan-court-a4b4c02751ab84c09718b1b95cbd5db3 https://apnews.com/article/icc-trump-sanctions-karim-khan-co...
- mark336 1y agoICC should also issue an arrest warrant for Trump/Biden. Who do you think supplies Israel with all the money and weapons they use against the Palestinians?
- FridayoLeary 1y agoAnd at the same time for the sake of balance, issue a warrant against saddam hussain and bin laden.
- hashim 1y agoBoth of those were violently killed by the US. Death tends to be a lot worse than arrest, but I agree that I'd like to see both Trump and Biden dealt with in the same way.
- ImJamal 1y agoWhy only target two presidents? The US has been involved with funding for decades. Also, why only target US? Europe has helped fund projects that have gone into weapons research.
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]
- mark336 1y agoYou all are right. Today, the UK, France and Canada made threats to take action on Israel over Gaza. We need balance. See more on this development on my news site: https://asiaviewnews.com/gigabots/Threads?p=80022 https://asiaviewnews.com/gigabots/Threads?p=80022
- TiredOfLife 1y agoICC should also issue an arrest warrant for Khamenei. Who do you think supplies Palestine/Yemen with all the money and weapons they use against the Israelis?
- 1y ago
- mark336 1y agoIn Europe's defense, they didn't expect a mad-man would be running the U.S., but still should have had a protocol for Apocalypse.
- ignoramous 1y agoCute to pin it all on one man and pretend K-Street doesn't exist.
- eviks 1y agoHow is that a defense not to expect the expected (given human's history worth of precedents)?
- int_19h 1y agoSaid madman was already elected once before in 2016. Fool me twice etc.
- andyferris 1y agoSoftware and cloud services have entered the infrastructure stage. I don't think it matters who writes the software. Governments should mandate the infrastructure be hosted and operated locally by people accountable to the host nation (the operators would pay for the software, perhaps a subsiduary or whatever). It should require a Netherlands court to deprive an institute located in the Hague of its infrastructure. This means bringing "big regulation" like we have for the electrical network (and the physical internet!) to the cloud. It would be tricky to draft since we'd still want to support the millions of small providers who, unlike Microsoft, you wouldn't describe as infrastructure.
- MarceliusK 1y agoI like the comparison to the electrical grid. We don't care where the generators were made, but we sure care who runs the switches.
- Gud 1y agoYou absolutely should care where the generator is made. Good luck sourcing your replacement components from a hostile nation.
- cyanydeez 1y agoYoure talking about utilities. And yes, letting foreign adversaries provide utilities is a security risk. Unfortunately, current citizens have been awash in the notion that capitalism needs supersede government secirity.
- belter 1y agohttps://nltimes.nl/2025/05/20/microsofts-icc-email-block-triggers-dutch-concerns-dependence-us-tech https://nltimes.nl/2025/05/20/microsofts-icc-email-block-tri... "Government agencies operate on Microsoft systems, hire employees with Microsoft expertise, and those employees, in turn, continue recommending Microsoft. “There’s political pressure, but in practice, all they know is Microsoft,” the same person said. Marietje Schaake, a technology policy expert and author of The Tech Coup, said Microsoft has strategically positioned itself as the go-to government partner. “The Netherlands has long been transatlantic in orientation and gives commercial parties a lot of space,” Schaake told de Volkskrant. She also pointed to a revolving door between Microsoft and government institutions."
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]
- blotfaba 1y ago[flagged]
- canxerian 1y agoThe contempt for international law is the true headline here.
- MarceliusK 1y agoIf your critical infrastructure lives under someone else's legal and political umbrella, then you're basically renting stability. And when politics shift, so can access.
- franczesko 1y agoMicrosoft will be hit hard due to DMA
- tremon 1y agoThe ICC was created by the United Nations, it is not an EU institution. I don't think the DMA has much relevance to this particular case.