Ancestors

Written by Linux Is Best on 2025-02-02 at 19:23

Dear Fediverse Administrators,

Please consider relocating your website to a web hosting provider based outside the United States of America.

Historically, fascist governments do not ignore the little guy -- That's you, and your users.

[#]Fediverse #Fedi #ActivityPub #Mastodon #Misskey #CherryPick #IceShrimp #Sharkey #WebHosting #Cdn #Dns #WebHost #Hosting #Vpn

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Written by 🌈 BarbaPulpe 😇 ᴹᵃˢᵗᵒᵈᵒⁿ on 2025-02-02 at 19:29

@Linux

Yep. Everything we host is located in the European Union, operated by EU and Swiss companies.

https://gayfr.online

[#]gayfr

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Written by Linux Is Best on 2025-02-02 at 19:55

@barbapulpe

You should find another hosting provider, because I would not recommend, Hostinger (they're partly based out of the USA).

The company is basically one of those corporations that makes up many other corporations, with investing companies holding interest. They previously had web hosting services in the United States (you see that easy enough on Wikipedia), and while they may have ended those sub companies, they kept the US-based incorporation and even use it to process payments (see URL)

" HOSTINGER US INC., registered at 1201 North Market Street, Suite 111-F69, Wilmington, DE 19801, United States "

This means they still fall under US-jurisdiction since they do have an Us-based company.

https://www.hostinger.com/legal/universal-terms-of-service-agreement

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Written by 🌈 BarbaPulpe 😇 ᴹᵃˢᵗᵒᵈᵒⁿ on 2025-02-02 at 22:11

@Linux

I use the EU-based corporation. The company is HQ in Lithuania in EU. You'd have a hard-time finding a large company with no ties to US whatsoever (subsidiary, investors,...) so I believe it's as good as it can get. Any alternative suggestions with: no subsidiary in the US, no investor from the US, no business in US$ (which is sufficient matter for DoJ filing a case using extraterritoriality)?

From their ToS:

"Any other country not listed above (including EU countries), then the contracting entity will be Hostinger International Ltd., Cyprus private limited company, registered address 61 Lordou Vironos str., 6023 Larnaca, Cyprus."

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Written by Linux Is Best on 2025-02-02 at 22:51

@barbapulpe A few people asked if I have a list of providers, outside the United States.

YES, I have a list of Domain Registers, Web Hosting, Privacy Focused E-mail, Managed DNS, Public DNS, CDN, and VPN providers that I have confirmed as not based out of the USA or owned by a USA company.

I am interested in expanding this list, so if anyone has any suggestions, please speak up.

https://misskey.de/notes/a3rcto65dn

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Written by Impish4249 on 2025-02-03 at 17:35

@Linux @barbapulpe

I noticed that you omitted #Proton. Given recent concerns about their CEO I think that wise.

I have a rather large Proton footprint and was all in with them. I am in the process of creating my exit strategy and I think your list will be helpful. Thank you for sharing it with us.

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Written by Linux Is Best on 2025-02-03 at 19:38

@Impish4249 @barbapulpe

A division of Proton is now a US-based company. Particularly, Proton Wallet. Their Terms of Services, also goes into lengths concerning Us Laws and Us Customers. It goes beyond just the CEO's support for fascism leadership (Donald Trump).

Naturally, making this list is not easy. These are two types of companies I avoided in making my list.

1. Those who actually fall under US-jurisdiction because they are based or owned by a company in the USA.

More than often, I will stumble over a company that appears to be outside the USA, but later find they are owned by another corporation based inside the USA, and so they do fall under US-jurisdiction.

2. Those who voluntarily give up their sovereignty to the United States. The 2nd type, who voluntarily gives up their sovereignty in the way of US jurisdiction, have whole sections of their terms concerning US Laws and US based customers. If a fascist government says jump, these people will ask, how high?!

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Written by 🌈 BarbaPulpe 😇 ᴹᵃˢᵗᵒᵈᵒⁿ on 2025-02-03 at 20:06

@Linux @Impish4249

It's great making the effort to draft that list, thank you for that.

But of course, everyone must realize that in the digital world, it is near impossible to avoid any US adherence (a.k.a. US Nexus).

• Most companies serious about their growth and financial sustainability will usually have a US-subsidiary. However that may be fine if you adhere to the EU company and that the legal structure guarantees some level of independence. Of course, even then the threat of cutting off your US operations may be enough for some companies to bend over. As I pointed out in a previous example, OVH as one has a US-subsidiary company, although it claims independence for its HQ based in France.

• Almost each and every international financial transaction will be made in US dollars, since the Bretton-Woods agreement. This is sufficient grounds for the US to claim a US-Nexus and for the DoJ to file cases against companies using the US$ (many such cases are publicly available).

• The banking system heavily relies on Swift and other mechanisms involving the US. So, payment processing is usually bound to the US in some respect (using VISA,...?)

• Dominant hardware and software are owned by US-based companies. One good example is VMWare which was recently acquired by Broadcom, an aggressive US-company. And VMWare is used as a key component of the technical stack for virtualization by many leading hosting companies, it is the case also for OVH. Not talking about internet routing (Cisco), many intermediate servers, etc. with the technical gov. backdoors.

So, my point is, we must not give a sense of full independence from the US for digital services, when reality is far more complex. The only true contender is China, which has not yet reached full independence but not so far and probably soon will have. Whether you want to use their services is a personal choice.

Bottom line is: if you use US-company services (wherever your data may be hosted, even in EU, thanks to CLOUD Act/FISAA) or any service based in the US, you are at high risk. If you can avoid both for most of your services, the risk is lower, but it is not zero. As good as it can get, and that's what you should realistically aim for. So your list helps in that respect.

Thanks for all the work.

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Toot

Written by GunChleoc on 2025-02-03 at 21:53

@barbapulpe @Linux @Impish4249 There's also the https://european-alternatives.eu/alternatives-to list

ETA: Seems like that list isn't reliable, see comment by OP below

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Descendants

Written by Linux Is Best on 2025-02-03 at 22:10

@gunchleoc @barbapulpe @Impish4249

If you read the thread, which you did not, you would know that site cannot be trusted.

Many of the businesses may appear to be from Europe, but they are owned by other corporations which are owned by USA Companies.

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Written by GunChleoc on 2025-02-03 at 22:36

@Linux @barbapulpe @Impish4249 Thanks for the hint. I DID read the thread, but it wasn't obvious from that.

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Written by Linux Is Best on 2025-02-03 at 23:17

@gunchleoc @barbapulpe @Impish4249

OK - It seems the other person deleted their post, which means my reply was no longer in the threads. - That explains things.

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Written by GunChleoc on 2025-02-04 at 01:10

@Linux @barbapulpe @Impish4249 No worries, we're good 🙂

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