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Fastmail offers EU data region

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Re: Fastmail offers EU data region

#81

Post by jacquesm »

ffsm8 wrote: post #31
jacquesm wrote: post #9

EU data regions are a reflexive action by companies that try to hold on to their EU customers (and more and more are leaving, surprisingly the larger ones seem to be leading here). Realize that as long as you are still hosted on US owned infrastructure or that if there are US (or: five-eyes) owned companies anywhere in the stack your data can still be forcibly pulled and often without you being aware that this happen…

> your data can still be forcibly pulled and often without you being aware that this happened as a german i feel the urge to point out that this technically also applies to european companies... With more hurdles for the US, but still technically applicable

That's true but the EU still has a - mostly - functioning legal system. See 'Schrems' and other lawsuits that came out as they should have.

Re: Fastmail offers EU data region

#82

Post by jacquesm »

kisamoto wrote: post #75
jacquesm wrote: post #9

EU data regions are a reflexive action by companies that try to hold on to their EU customers (and more and more are leaving, surprisingly the larger ones seem to be leading here). Realize that as long as you are still hosted on US owned infrastructure or that if there are US (or: five-eyes) owned companies anywhere in the stack your data can still be forcibly pulled and often without you being aware that this happen…

Does this still apply if there are separate legal entities for US & EU operations? Take Hetzner as an example. They have a separate US company to deal with their US data center. Would their EU servers be vulnerable to the CLOUD Act?

Well, for sure they can pressure them but I highly doubt Hetzner would break the law in Europe to satisfy the US government, they are a lot more to lose here than there. I realize that that is not proof.

Re: Fastmail offers EU data region

#83

Post by monsieurbanana »

petcat wrote: post #61
greenleafone7 wrote: post #56

The article states that they do not offer any guarantee that my data will stay in the EU! I feel that that's the whole point. And the whole point of them making this article/advertisement.

How could they possibly guarantee such a thing? Do you only send and receive emails with people in the EU?

At the moment all your data is still replicated in the US (they say it will change in the future, sure) and all the logs are also stored there, with no plans to change it or more details into what they contain.

As of now there's no guarantee of... anything, really.

Obviously if you decide to send an email to the US you're choosing to send your data there, that's a strawman.

Re: Fastmail offers EU data region

#84

Post by jacquesm »

rufasterisco wrote: post #36
jacquesm wrote: post #9

EU data regions are a reflexive action by companies that try to hold on to their EU customers (and more and more are leaving, surprisingly the larger ones seem to be leading here). Realize that as long as you are still hosted on US owned infrastructure or that if there are US (or: five-eyes) owned companies anywhere in the stack your data can still be forcibly pulled and often without you being aware that this happen…

Can you point me towards some resources that show EU customers moving? Not that I don’t trust the statement, I just would like to know more.

I hope Airbus is large enough for you?

https://thenextweb.com/news/airbus-scaleway-aws-sovereign-cl...

And many others besides, pretty much every company I've looked at in the last year is either acutely aware of the problem or they are already executing on it. With Trump and his merry band of criminals repeatedly stating they're going to take Greenland by force you can't blame them either, that would effectively put the EU on a war footing with the United States (I still can't believe I'm writing this sort of thing and it is not entirely fiction), the end result of that would be that there would be an absolute run on EU hosted capacity. They're just trying to beat the rush and hope they'll never be proven to be right.

Re: Fastmail offers EU data region

#85

Post by toomuchtodo »

rufasterisco wrote: post #36
jacquesm wrote: post #9

EU data regions are a reflexive action by companies that try to hold on to their EU customers (and more and more are leaving, surprisingly the larger ones seem to be leading here). Realize that as long as you are still hosted on US owned infrastructure or that if there are US (or: five-eyes) owned companies anywhere in the stack your data can still be forcibly pulled and often without you being aware that this happen…

Can you point me towards some resources that show EU customers moving? Not that I don’t trust the statement, I just would like to know more.

HN Search: airbus critical apps scaleway - https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...

Gov.uk has replaced Stripe with Dutch provider Adyen - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48415217 - June 2026 (235 comments)

Netherlands reaches deal with European cloud company to decrease U.S. tech reliance - https://nltimes.nl/2026/04/24/netherlands-reaches-deal-europ... - April 24th, 2026

Wary of US Big Tech, the EU looks to build its “EuroStack” - https://sherwood.news/world/wary-of-us-big-tech-the-eu-looks... - March 18th, 2026

Why European Companies Are Leaving US Cloud Providers in 2026 — And Where They're Going - https://massivegrid.com/blog/european-companies-leaving-us-c... - March 12th, 2026

Europe gets serious about cutting digital umbilical cord with Uncle Sam's big tech - https://www.theregister.com/off-prem/2025/12/22/europe-gets-... - December 22nd, 2025

Schleswig-Holstein waves auf Wiedersehen to Microsoft stack - https://www.theregister.com/software/2025/10/15/schleswig-ho... - October 15th, 2025

EU Banks Launch Wero Payments to Dislodge Visa, Mastercard - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41666833 - September 2024 (88 comments)

https://european-alternatives.eu/

https://euro-stack.com/

Re: Fastmail offers EU data region

#86

Post by plqbfbv »

preisschild wrote: post #79
superq wrote: post #65

EU data regions are based on the insanely flawed idea that data is: * a physical thing that can only live in one place * not copyable * can be 'contained'. The whole thing reeks of bureaucratic 'best practices' that just aren't. Even worse than that, trying to keep email restricted to the EU (or anywhere else) means that you effectively wouldn't be able to communicate with anyone in a different region, which is kinda…

This is not an EU law anyways, this is snakeoil companies acting like having their data located in the EU will change who has access to it and will make it "GDPR compliant" (it wont since the CLOUD ACT still applies)

> The CLOUD Act authorizes bilateral agreements between the United States and trusted foreign partners that will make both nations’ citizens safer, while at the same time ensuring a high level of protection of those citizens’ rights.

I think the keywords are "trusted" and "citizens' rights". US burned a lot of trust in the last few years, and what's happening with ICE doesn't really scream "citizens' rights" either. I can see why many "trusted foreign partners" would now think twice rather than help out the US compared to just 5 years ago.

As a EU person, I'd really like to not have ties with US when possible, and I'd really like to foster the economy of non-US alternatives.

Re: Fastmail offers EU data region

#87

Post by DarrenDev »

jacquesm wrote: post #9

EU data regions are a reflexive action by companies that try to hold on to their EU customers (and more and more are leaving, surprisingly the larger ones seem to be leading here). Realize that as long as you are still hosted on US owned infrastructure or that if there are US (or: five-eyes) owned companies anywhere in the stack your data can still be forcibly pulled and often without you being aware that this happen…

EU sovereign clouds are taking off right now - especially when it comes to sensitive data (government, healthcare, etc.). Lots of players moving into the space. The common denominator - nothing touches the US.

AWS, Azure, GCP, Oracle, Schwarz Digits, SAP

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