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Since it appears to have gotten hugged to death - https://web.archive.org/web/20260908084626/https://ciphercue.com/blog/european-cdn-concentration-cloudflare-ni

Since it appears to have gotten hugged to death - https://web.archive.org/web/20260908084626/https://ciphercue.com/blog/european-cdn-concentration-cloudflare-nine-in-ten https://web.archive.org/web/20260908084626/https://ciphercue... Not really unexpected, US domination of "tech" is near total, even if the sustained political will exists (and I'm not sure it will for long enough) unwinding that is the expensive work of years/decades not months. Doing it in a way that won't invite retaliation from the US Gov (which seems more and more like the PR arm of US big tech) is even trickier. Personally I think we absolutely should, I just don't think we will. Barring them doing something so egregiously awful we don't have the choice, Governments can move fast when they want to but efficient government scares the shit out of me because it rarely happens outside of a genuinely serious crisis.

embedding-shape 1mo ago
> Doing it in a way that won't invite retaliation from the US Gov (which seems more and more like the PR arm of US big tech) is even trickier. I'm thinking the opposite might be the way to go here. We already know that "retaliation" comes from the US government regardless if you did something or not, so most of us (Europeans) have stopped pretending there is a way of preventing it. Even more, if we piss off Trump enough, he might be dumb enough to try to block European access to CloudFlare, or something similar and maybe even dumber. So with this, maybe the goal should actually be to try to piss off Trump and the US administration as much as possible, in order for them to start reacting and cutting off some stuff, so we (again, Europeans) basically gets forced off CloudFlare et al. Lots of companies already finished moving away from storing their primary data in the US, lots of companies is in process of doing so (albeit some look like they'll take forever) but also lots of companies still aren't prepared for the future, would be nice if US government could make the decision a bit easier for them to make :)
- microtonal 1mo ago
  While I theoretically agree, the issue is that Trump will connect economical issues to blowing up NATO Article 5, leaving NATO completely, or retracting intelligence or Starlink for Ukraine. So for the most part, the EU has to work slowly and under the radar. That said, my worry is that we'll be back to business as usual if the midterms look favorable. Even the urgency present during January's Greenland threats was gone after a few months. I fear that we don't have the long-term focus and planning to make sovereignty really happen. But I'd love to be surprised.
  - philipallstar 1mo ago
    I don't think the EU has the capability to work fast and just is opting not to.
  - embedding-shape 1mo ago
    > Even the urgency present during January's Greenland threats was gone after a few months. There are troops deployed on Greenland right now ready to defend the island. The threat is not gone from the minds of the people there or in the rest of Europe just because you stopped reading about it on CNN or whatever. Edit: I got curious if this part is even possible: > leaving NATO completely Apparently not. Congress enacted a specific prohibition in 2023, now codified at 22 U.S.C. §1928f. It says that the president may not "suspend, terminate, denounce, or withdraw" the US from the North Atlantic Treaty unless either two-thirds of senators present consent, or Congress passes an Act authorizing it. It also prohibits federal funds from being used to carry out an unauthorized withdrawal. Seems some parts of the US has indeed managed to setup defenses against such idiocracy.
    - microtonal 1mo ago
      The threat is not gone from the minds of the people there or in the rest of Europe just because you stopped reading about it on CNN or whatever. I don't watch CNN. I live in Europe, read European newspapers. It's just something that I noticed observing people. In January, a lot of people started thinking about moving away from US services, there were even newspaper articles about alternative smartphone OSes, etc. Now most people are back to business as usual. (Which doesn't mean that some countries aren't moving to alternatives, etc.) Apparently not. Congress enacted a specific prohibition in 2023, now codified at 22 U.S.C. §1928f. It says that the president may not "suspend, terminate, denounce, or withdraw" the US from the North Atlantic Treaty unless either two-thirds of senators present consent, or Congress passes an Act authorizing it. Agreed that complete withdrawal is hard currently. But it's a toothless tiger (as least with respect to the US) when the commander in chief says he will not defend a country because they have been unfair to the US. My personal opinion is that the EU should just do what it needs to do, because NATO is effectively dead and reboot the alliance without the US in parallel.
- pocksuppet 1mo ago
  Trump doesn't need to block European access to Cloudflare when Europe already blocks European access to Cloudflare on weekends. In Spain and Italy. And yet, this hasn't deterred European businesses from using Cloudflare and blocking their own customers.
  - embedding-shape 1mo ago
    Great, more misinformation. "Europe" doesn't block access to Cloudflare on weekends in either Spain nor Italy. Source: I live in Spain, and I'm affected by the blocks you're referring to, that happen because of shitty Spanish judges forcing Spanish ISPs to block access to specific Cloudflare properties. Why not take even two seconds to check if what you're guessing about, might actually be correct or not? Or the goal is just FUD here? > And yet, this hasn't deterred European businesses from using Cloudflare and blocking their own customers. Maybe because the impact of these blocks aren't as large as you allude to? Things change, these blocklists get updated. What was blocked 6 months ago no longer is, when these anti-piracy blocks happen. Don't get me wrong, I don't agree with these blocks at all, and AFAIK, they break both national laws and wider "rights", but lets not pretend it's bigger than what it is in reality.
    - n6242 1mo ago
      If anything, you're the one misinforming. I have no interest in soccer and every time there is a match I find out immediately because they like to knock down everything they see in the same general direction. I've even been in the situation of needing to do work for overseas companies in the evening and had to get on a VPN because they were just blocking random stuff and I couldn't install some dependency because the repository was blocked. Last time it happened was last week. My non technical friend was also complaining about some of her uni stuff being blocked recently as well. Maybe you're lucky because only use YouTube and Twitter and don't notice too many sites blocked, but the moment you go outside of big tech your chances are 50/50 you will probably come accross one or two blocked sites if you're not on a VPN.
bryanrasmussen 1mo ago
lots of efficient government happens outside of a serious crisis, but then you don't notice it.
k__ 1mo ago
Yeah, I think only in crypto the non-us providers have a leg up, because running a node just needs an instance.
expedition32 1mo ago
Compared to the Spanish empire, Napoleon and Hitler the Americans are but whiny children. It would be one last hurrah for my country to break away.
zkmon 1mo ago
>> US domination of "tech" is near total. Not quite when considering China having the tech freedom they wanted. Also switching internet services is far easier than switching physical supply chains. The only thing that might be hard to switch is the part of the interent backbone infra that is controlled by USA.
- shevy-java 1mo ago
  You are not living in Europe, right? Because while I agree that China is a problem, the USA is a much, much bigger problem for Europeans than China is right now. It's mostly the USA that wants to depict China as the main problem when in reality the USA behaves in a hugely aggressive colonial manner. Trump just makes this more obvious, but that has been the case way before Trump already.
  - thesmtsolver2 1mo ago
    What? Go ask almost anyone in Asia outside Mainland China. They all consider China to be the aggressor because they are. E.g., Tibet or India.
    - kakacik 1mo ago
      Both claims can be correct. US became Europe's adversary, quite active and pushy. We don't know yet where the end of backstabbing and shitting on us lies, we can easily have a war ie over Greenland within 2 years. China? It wants to sell its cars here, and thats about it. Incomparable.
      - broken-kebab 1mo ago
        China isn't a big bully for European nations cause it's counterbalanced by USA, not of inherent niceness. Also in two years there will be a different president in White house, but in Beijing things aren't that fluid.
        1mo ago
shevy-java 1mo ago
> Personally I think we absolutely should, I just don't think we will. I think many millions in the EU want to. The problem is that the current EU "politicians" are just US lobbyists. You can see it when Leyen signed the surrender treaty with her Overlord-buddy Trump. You can not fix the EU with such lobbiysts in place - and it's not just Leyen alone. Look at Merz - the guy basically is a tool used by US companies. He is not the brightest but very loyal to the USA. More than to the people who voted for him (and now curse themselves for having made such a big mistake).
jonnybgood 1mo ago
> Doing it in a way that won't invite retaliation from the US Gov (which seems more and more like the PR arm of US big tech) is even trickier. You mean the US government working towards the interests of its people and economy? Which government wouldn't? It's kinda what we want it to do.
- thesmtsolver2 1mo ago
  Didn’t you read the memo? Only European govts or China can act in the interests of their people and companies but if the US does that it is immoral.
  - lukan 1mo ago
    One difference is, EU or China don't act as global hegemon and claim to promote freedom, democracy and free markets for everyone.
    - ExoticPearTree 1mo ago
      > free markets for everyone should read as "everyone the US likes", not everyone everyone.
    - JumpCrisscross 1mo ago
      > EU or China don't act as global hegemon France has global geopolitical projects, as does China in South America, Central Asia and Africa. Both export arms into conflicts and conduct global intelligence operations.
      - lukan 1mo ago
        Sure, some also still dream secretly of a french global empire and french as the rightful lingua franca reinstalled. But de facto they ain't a global hegemon - the US is. And people were mostly fine with it, while they were not obviously abusing their position of power for themself.
quadrifoliate 1mo ago
> Doing it in a way that won't invite retaliation from the US Gov (which seems more and more like the PR arm of US big tech) is even trickier. It's not the so-called retaliation of the US government that leads to European inefficiencies like paying notaries thousands of euros to read out a contract to you (several discussions going around about this in Germany recently). This is ultimately just a boogeyman. European governments love to blame someone else for their inefficient and bureaucratic processes that stifle innovation and are slowly becoming the laughing stock of the tech world. If they really want a thriving tech industry, EU should: - Normalize laws and regulations relating to commerce and online activities throughout the EU. Get rid of the notary crap. While you are at it, get rid of the impressum (why the fuck should I need to post my home address on my website?). - Ensure that these normalized regulations are available in the tens of languages across the EU - Invest heavily in telecom and data center infrastructure and software on a European-wide basis. The current AI bubble will see a downturn but data centers and connectivity infrastructure can be reused for EU-based cloud services. - Invite the UK back in once they are an actual economic powerhouse that can speak with one voice. Of course none of this will ever get done because EU bureaucrats would rather be in a perpetual hand-wringing mode while blaming the Big Bad US Boogeyman for all their problems.
- bell-cot 1mo ago
  Upstream of all of those things is whether it's an actual priority for the ruling classes, or not. The politicians and bureaucrats are downstream of that, and physically incapable of wagging the dog.
- mitxela 1mo ago
  That notary thing is very stupid but just one thing - let's not pretend the US doesn't have stupidity on that level too. DMV lines, anyone? One voting booth for an entire city because it's majority black?
  - quadrifoliate 1mo ago
    Obviously, the US has lots and lots of stupid things. The difference is that you typically don't hear "Oh we need to make slow progress on making voting easier, because the EU will retaliate". That would be absurd. We recognize that it's our own fault, i.e. the politicians that we are voting in.
Neil44 1mo ago
Ironic that an article about a CDN was hugged to death. The free plan with a couple of caching rules could have sorted that.
throwaway613746 1mo ago
[dead]

embedding-shape 1mo ago

> Doing it in a way that won't invite retaliation from the US Gov (which seems more and more like the PR arm of US big tech) is even trickier. I'm thinking the opposite might be the way to go here. We already know that "retaliation" comes from the US government regardless if you did something or not, so most of us (Europeans) have stopped pretending there is a way of preventing it. Even more, if we piss off Trump enough, he might be dumb enough to try to block European access to CloudFlare, or something similar and maybe even dumber. So with this, maybe the goal should actually be to try to piss off Trump and the US administration as much as possible, in order for them to start reacting and cutting off some stuff, so we (again, Europeans) basically gets forced off CloudFlare et al. Lots of companies already finished moving away from storing their primary data in the US, lots of companies is in process of doing so (albeit some look like they'll take forever) but also lots of companies still aren't prepared for the future, would be nice if US government could make the decision a bit easier for them to make :)

microtonal 1mo ago
While I theoretically agree, the issue is that Trump will connect economical issues to blowing up NATO Article 5, leaving NATO completely, or retracting intelligence or Starlink for Ukraine. So for the most part, the EU has to work slowly and under the radar. That said, my worry is that we'll be back to business as usual if the midterms look favorable. Even the urgency present during January's Greenland threats was gone after a few months. I fear that we don't have the long-term focus and planning to make sovereignty really happen. But I'd love to be surprised.
- philipallstar 1mo ago
  I don't think the EU has the capability to work fast and just is opting not to.
- embedding-shape 1mo ago
  > Even the urgency present during January's Greenland threats was gone after a few months. There are troops deployed on Greenland right now ready to defend the island. The threat is not gone from the minds of the people there or in the rest of Europe just because you stopped reading about it on CNN or whatever. Edit: I got curious if this part is even possible: > leaving NATO completely Apparently not. Congress enacted a specific prohibition in 2023, now codified at 22 U.S.C. §1928f. It says that the president may not "suspend, terminate, denounce, or withdraw" the US from the North Atlantic Treaty unless either two-thirds of senators present consent, or Congress passes an Act authorizing it. It also prohibits federal funds from being used to carry out an unauthorized withdrawal. Seems some parts of the US has indeed managed to setup defenses against such idiocracy.
  - microtonal 1mo ago
    The threat is not gone from the minds of the people there or in the rest of Europe just because you stopped reading about it on CNN or whatever. I don't watch CNN. I live in Europe, read European newspapers. It's just something that I noticed observing people. In January, a lot of people started thinking about moving away from US services, there were even newspaper articles about alternative smartphone OSes, etc. Now most people are back to business as usual. (Which doesn't mean that some countries aren't moving to alternatives, etc.) Apparently not. Congress enacted a specific prohibition in 2023, now codified at 22 U.S.C. §1928f. It says that the president may not "suspend, terminate, denounce, or withdraw" the US from the North Atlantic Treaty unless either two-thirds of senators present consent, or Congress passes an Act authorizing it. Agreed that complete withdrawal is hard currently. But it's a toothless tiger (as least with respect to the US) when the commander in chief says he will not defend a country because they have been unfair to the US. My personal opinion is that the EU should just do what it needs to do, because NATO is effectively dead and reboot the alliance without the US in parallel.
pocksuppet 1mo ago
Trump doesn't need to block European access to Cloudflare when Europe already blocks European access to Cloudflare on weekends. In Spain and Italy. And yet, this hasn't deterred European businesses from using Cloudflare and blocking their own customers.
- embedding-shape 1mo ago
  Great, more misinformation. "Europe" doesn't block access to Cloudflare on weekends in either Spain nor Italy. Source: I live in Spain, and I'm affected by the blocks you're referring to, that happen because of shitty Spanish judges forcing Spanish ISPs to block access to specific Cloudflare properties. Why not take even two seconds to check if what you're guessing about, might actually be correct or not? Or the goal is just FUD here? > And yet, this hasn't deterred European businesses from using Cloudflare and blocking their own customers. Maybe because the impact of these blocks aren't as large as you allude to? Things change, these blocklists get updated. What was blocked 6 months ago no longer is, when these anti-piracy blocks happen. Don't get me wrong, I don't agree with these blocks at all, and AFAIK, they break both national laws and wider "rights", but lets not pretend it's bigger than what it is in reality.
  - n6242 1mo ago
    If anything, you're the one misinforming. I have no interest in soccer and every time there is a match I find out immediately because they like to knock down everything they see in the same general direction. I've even been in the situation of needing to do work for overseas companies in the evening and had to get on a VPN because they were just blocking random stuff and I couldn't install some dependency because the repository was blocked. Last time it happened was last week. My non technical friend was also complaining about some of her uni stuff being blocked recently as well. Maybe you're lucky because only use YouTube and Twitter and don't notice too many sites blocked, but the moment you go outside of big tech your chances are 50/50 you will probably come accross one or two blocked sites if you're not on a VPN.

bryanrasmussen 1mo ago

lots of efficient government happens outside of a serious crisis, but then you don't notice it.

k__ 1mo ago

Yeah, I think only in crypto the non-us providers have a leg up, because running a node just needs an instance.

expedition32 1mo ago

Compared to the Spanish empire, Napoleon and Hitler the Americans are but whiny children. It would be one last hurrah for my country to break away.

zkmon 1mo ago

>> US domination of "tech" is near total. Not quite when considering China having the tech freedom they wanted. Also switching internet services is far easier than switching physical supply chains. The only thing that might be hard to switch is the part of the interent backbone infra that is controlled by USA.

shevy-java 1mo ago
You are not living in Europe, right? Because while I agree that China is a problem, the USA is a much, much bigger problem for Europeans than China is right now. It's mostly the USA that wants to depict China as the main problem when in reality the USA behaves in a hugely aggressive colonial manner. Trump just makes this more obvious, but that has been the case way before Trump already.
- thesmtsolver2 1mo ago
  What? Go ask almost anyone in Asia outside Mainland China. They all consider China to be the aggressor because they are. E.g., Tibet or India.
  - kakacik 1mo ago
    Both claims can be correct. US became Europe's adversary, quite active and pushy. We don't know yet where the end of backstabbing and shitting on us lies, we can easily have a war ie over Greenland within 2 years. China? It wants to sell its cars here, and thats about it. Incomparable.
    - broken-kebab 1mo ago
      China isn't a big bully for European nations cause it's counterbalanced by USA, not of inherent niceness. Also in two years there will be a different president in White house, but in Beijing things aren't that fluid.
      - 1mo ago

shevy-java 1mo ago

> Personally I think we absolutely should, I just don't think we will. I think many millions in the EU want to. The problem is that the current EU "politicians" are just US lobbyists. You can see it when Leyen signed the surrender treaty with her Overlord-buddy Trump. You can not fix the EU with such lobbiysts in place - and it's not just Leyen alone. Look at Merz - the guy basically is a tool used by US companies. He is not the brightest but very loyal to the USA. More than to the people who voted for him (and now curse themselves for having made such a big mistake).

jonnybgood 1mo ago

> Doing it in a way that won't invite retaliation from the US Gov (which seems more and more like the PR arm of US big tech) is even trickier. You mean the US government working towards the interests of its people and economy? Which government wouldn't? It's kinda what we want it to do.

thesmtsolver2 1mo ago
Didn’t you read the memo? Only European govts or China can act in the interests of their people and companies but if the US does that it is immoral.
- lukan 1mo ago
  One difference is, EU or China don't act as global hegemon and claim to promote freedom, democracy and free markets for everyone.
  - ExoticPearTree 1mo ago
    > free markets for everyone should read as "everyone the US likes", not everyone everyone.
  - JumpCrisscross 1mo ago
    > EU or China don't act as global hegemon France has global geopolitical projects, as does China in South America, Central Asia and Africa. Both export arms into conflicts and conduct global intelligence operations.
    - lukan 1mo ago
      Sure, some also still dream secretly of a french global empire and french as the rightful lingua franca reinstalled. But de facto they ain't a global hegemon - the US is. And people were mostly fine with it, while they were not obviously abusing their position of power for themself.

quadrifoliate 1mo ago

> Doing it in a way that won't invite retaliation from the US Gov (which seems more and more like the PR arm of US big tech) is even trickier. It's not the so-called retaliation of the US government that leads to European inefficiencies like paying notaries thousands of euros to read out a contract to you (several discussions going around about this in Germany recently). This is ultimately just a boogeyman. European governments love to blame someone else for their inefficient and bureaucratic processes that stifle innovation and are slowly becoming the laughing stock of the tech world. If they really want a thriving tech industry, EU should: - Normalize laws and regulations relating to commerce and online activities throughout the EU. Get rid of the notary crap. While you are at it, get rid of the impressum (why the fuck should I need to post my home address on my website?). - Ensure that these normalized regulations are available in the tens of languages across the EU - Invest heavily in telecom and data center infrastructure and software on a European-wide basis. The current AI bubble will see a downturn but data centers and connectivity infrastructure can be reused for EU-based cloud services. - Invite the UK back in once they are an actual economic powerhouse that can speak with one voice. Of course none of this will ever get done because EU bureaucrats would rather be in a perpetual hand-wringing mode while blaming the Big Bad US Boogeyman for all their problems.

bell-cot 1mo ago
Upstream of all of those things is whether it's an actual priority for the ruling classes, or not. The politicians and bureaucrats are downstream of that, and physically incapable of wagging the dog.
mitxela 1mo ago
That notary thing is very stupid but just one thing - let's not pretend the US doesn't have stupidity on that level too. DMV lines, anyone? One voting booth for an entire city because it's majority black?
- quadrifoliate 1mo ago
  Obviously, the US has lots and lots of stupid things. The difference is that you typically don't hear "Oh we need to make slow progress on making voting easier, because the EU will retaliate". That would be absurd. We recognize that it's our own fault, i.e. the politicians that we are voting in.

Neil44 1mo ago

Ironic that an article about a CDN was hugged to death. The free plan with a couple of caching rules could have sorted that.

throwaway613746 1mo ago

[dead]