Europeans seek alternatives in campaign to break U.S. tech dominance

A growing number of Europeans are turning away from American tech giants and seeking out home-grown digital services as U.S. companies align with President Donald Trump’s administration.

At a small stall in a Berlin market, volunteers from the charity Topio are overwriting Google’s standard Android software on visitors’ phones with a version that removes ties to U.S. platforms. Since Trump’s second inauguration on January 20, more people have lined up for the free service according to a Reuters report.

Data from the firm Similarweb shows a rise in searches across Europe for email, messaging and search tools that are not based in the United States. Users say their interest increased after Trump signaled he would dial back America’s role in European defense and imposed new tariffs on EU goods.

Michael Wirths, Topio’s founder, said the rush is driven by fears over “the concentration of power in U.S. firms.” As his colleague was putting a version of Android on a customer’s phone that didn’t connect to any Google services, Wirths noted that the crowd has shifted. “Before, it was people who knew a lot about data privacy, he said. “Now it’s people who are politically aware and feel exposed.”

Europeans’ unease was compounded by the high-profile presence of U.S. tech leaders at Trump’s January inauguration.

It includes Tesla’s Elon Musk, who briefly advised the president, along with the executives of Amazon, Meta and Alphabet. Just before leaving office, President Joe Biden warned about the “tech industrial complex” that could undermine democracy.

Ordinary EU users rethink trust in U.S. digital platforms

Berlin-based search engine Ecosia has benefited and uses its profits to plant trees. Founder Christian Kroll said that as relations between Europe and Washington soured, users looked for an alternative to Google or Microsoft’s Bing. Similarweb figures show Ecosia’s EU search queries jumped 27% year-on-year, and the company estimates it now holds about 1% of Germany’s search market.

In February, Ecosia logged 122 million visits from the 27 EU states, compared with 10.3 billion for Google. In 2024, Alphabet reported nearly $100 billion in revenues from Europe, the Middle East and Africa, almost a third of its $350 billion global total.

Ecosia, a non-profit, brought in €3.2 million in April, of which €770,000 funded the planting of 1.1 million trees.

Behind the consumer shift is a wider push for “digital sovereignty,” a belief that Europe’s dependence on U.S. tech poses strategic risks.

Maria Farrell, a UK commentator on internet regulation, said “ordinary people, the kind of people who would never have thought it was important they were using an American service, are saying, ‘hang on!'”

She added that even her hairdresser has sought advice on switching platforms.

Email habits reflect the same pattern. Use of Swiss-based ProtonMail rose by 11.7% in Europe through March compared with a year earlier, while Gmail, which holds about 70% of the global email market, fell by 1.9%, according to Similarweb.

ProtonMail, offering both free and paid tiers, said it has seen more European sign-ups since Trump’s election, though it would not share exact numbers.

“My household is definitely disengaging” said Ken Tindell, a software engineer in the UK.  He believes U.S. privacy rules are too weak.

U.S. data access laws justify European privacy fears

In February, Vice-President J.D. Vance accused EU nations at a Berlin conference of censoring speech and failing to control migration. Then in May, Secretary of State Marco Rubio warned he might ban visas for foreign officials who “censor” Americans online, including those enforcing U.S. tech rules abroad.

U.S. platforms like Facebook and Instagram parent Meta have argued that the EU’s new Digital Services Act amounts to censorship.

EU officials counter that the law simply forces tech firms to tackle illegal content, from hate speech to child abuse material.

Greg Nojeim of the Center for Democracy & Technology said Europeans’ fears over U.S. data access are justified. Nojeim added that U.S. law lets the government search the devices of anyone entering the country and forces American service providers to hand over data from Europeans, even if it’s stored or sent outside the U.S.

Governments in Europe are starting to act.

Germany’s new coalition pact commits to open-source data formats and local cloud services. In Schleswig-Holstein, public-sector IT must run on open-source software. Berlin has even paid for Ukraine to use France’s Eutelsat satellite internet instead of Elon Musk’s Starlink network.

A full break from U.S. tech would be nearly impossible

“Completely divorcing U.S. tech in a very fundamental way is, I would say, possibly not possible” said Bill Budington of the Electronic Frontier Foundation. From push notifications to the servers behind many websites, U.S. firms dominate.

Even European services depend on their big rivals. Ecosia and France’s Qwant rely in part on search results from Google and Bing, and Ecosia’s platform sits on cloud servers run by major U.S. companies.

The Reddit community BuyFromEU counts 211,000 members urging each other to drop U.S. tools. One post read, “Just cancelled my Dropbox and will switch to Proton Drive.”

Decentralized social networks and encrypted apps have seen bumps too.

Mastodon, created by German developer Eugen Rochko, attracted users when Musk took over Twitter, though it remains niche. The nonprofit Signal messenger recorded a 7% rise in European traffic in March, while WhatsApp usage stayed flat.

Despite these pockets of resistance, digital-rights campaigners say Europe’s challenge to Silicon Valley will likely remain small.  “The market is too captured,” said Robin Berjon, a digital rights activist.

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