Watch out: Sovereignty Washing

Big Tech tries to sell its proprietary offerings as sovereign. But only open source can guarantee real digital sovereignty.

@maemst with a meme-slide:

#NextcloudEnterpriseDay #opensource #sovereigntywashing

This is the result if your definition of sovereignty is so weak that everyone can do sovereignty washing.

A Leader in Forrester Wave Sovereign Cloud Platform 2026 | Google Cloud Blog
https://cloud.google.com/blog/products/identity-security/a-leader-in-forrester-wave-sovereign-cloud-platform-2026/

#digitalsovereignty #cloud #google #sovereigntywashing

A Leader in Forrester Wave Sovereign Cloud Platform 2026 | Google Cloud Blog

Google Cloud has been named a Leader in The Forrester Wave™: Sovereign Cloud Platforms, Q2 2026, validating our portfolio of choice approach.

Google Cloud Blog

RE: https://fosstodon.org/@lxs/116218050147774889

So applicable to the NZ decisions on 'sovereignty' as well. Everybody is still flocking to US Big Tech, leaving Aotearoa providers out of the game, thus keeping themselves 'cleanly sovereignty washed'.

#sovereignty #sovereigntywashing #cloud

I’m experiencing again and again sovereignty washing done by poor AWS or Microsoft employees. I’m wondering how it feels to do such a kind of disgusting job. Do they even sleep well? What are they telling their kids? 🤔

#digitalsovereignty #bigtech #sovereigntywashing

It's great when technology news agencies such as Heise call out Big Tech for their attempt to sovereign-wash their technology stack.
#digitalsovereignty #bigtech #sovereigntywashing
https://www.heise.de/en/news/Trusted-Tech-Alliance-Real-transparency-or-sovereignty-washing-11179697.html
Trusted Tech Alliance: Real transparency or sovereignty washing?

With the Trusted Tech Alliance, 16 international technology groups aim to establish trustworthy standards. However, US corporations also dominate here.

heise online

"Para mitigar estes riscos e garantir a soberania digital, a Microsoft destacou a implementação do "Data Boundary" (Fronteira de Dados da UE) e a figura do "Data Guardian", mecanismos que asseguram que os dados e metadados de cidadãos europeus permanecem no espaço comunitário e que o acesso a partir do exterior, nomeadamente dos Estados Unidos, carece de autorização europeia."

Em: Investimento da Microsoft em Sines pode catapultar Portugal para o "top 5" dos ciberataques na Europa - CNN Portugal

https://cnnportugal.iol.pt/ciberseguranca/ciberataques/investimento-da-microsoft-em-sines-pode-catapultar-portugal-para-o-top-5-dos-ciberataques-na-europa/20251204/69319827d34e3caad84c0539

E pronto, lá está a Microsoft com a sua lenga-lenga, a fingir que usar os serviços proprietários de uma empresa norte-americana pode servir para ter uma "nuvem soberana", logo que se tenha uma "data boundary" e um "data guardian" para garantir que os dados só são acessíveis por Europeus... e a Microsoft, e a NScale, e a NVidia, e os EUA.

#SovereigntyWashing

Investimento da Microsoft em Sines pode catapultar Portugal para o "top 5" dos ciberataques na Europa

País já saltou do 34.º para o 12.º lugar nos rankings de risco em apenas um ano. Agora, com a construção da nova "fábrica de IA", a tecnológica admite que Portugal pode passar a ser um dos principais alvos dos piratas informáticos na Europa

CNN Portugal

@carlamelee

"Der jetzige Deal spielt hingegen in einer anderen Liga: Palantir steht an der Spitze eines Konsortiums, zu dem auch ... Unternehmensberatungen wie Accenture, Microsoft, Amazon Web Services und PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) gehören."

Das ist brisant, weil die auch die Ministerien beraten.

Ich selbst war über PwC an #OpenDesk beteiligt, bevor das @zendis übernommen hat.

Accenture berät auch Verwaltung
#AWS und #Microsoft machen #sovereigntywashing

#digitalesouveränität

Well written short blog post on "sovereignty-washing", a quite apt term to describe the desperate attempt by Big Tech to brand "EU-sovereign" services which are actually not.

https://blog.xot.nl/2025/06/18/sovereignty-washing/index.html

#digitalsovereignty #bigtech #eu #europa #sovereigntywashing

Sovereignty-washing