To comply with a Trump executive order, Microsoft recently helped suspend the email account of an International Criminal Court prosecutor in the Netherlands who was investigating Israel for war crimes, The New York Times reported.
When President Trump issued an executive order in February against the chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Court for investigating Israel for war crimes, Microsoft was suddenly thrust into the middle of a geopolitical fight.
For years, Microsoft had supplied the court — which is based in The Hague in the Netherlands and investigates and prosecutes human rights breaches, genocides and other crimes of international concern — with digital services such as email. Mr. Trump’s order abruptly threw that relationship into disarray by barring U.S. companies from providing services to the prosecutor, Karim Khan.
Soon after, Microsoft, which is based in Redmond, Wash., helped turn off Mr. Khan’s I.C.C. email account, freezing him out of communications with colleagues just a few months after the court had issued an arrest warrant for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel for his country’s actions in Gaza.
Microsoft’s swift compliance with Mr. Trump’s order, reported earlier by The Associated Press, shocked policymakers across Europe. It was a wake-up call for a problem far bigger than just one email account, stoking fears that the Trump administration would leverage America’s tech dominance to penalize opponents, even in allied countries like the Netherlands.
TechCrunch reported: European governments may be reconsidering their use of American technology and services, according to a new report in The New York Times.
The flashpoint seems to come after President Donald Trump sanctioned Karim Kahn, the chief prosecutor at the International Criminal Court, over the ICC’s decision to issue arrest warrants for Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former defense minister Yoav Gallant.
In response, Microsoft turned off Khan’s email address. Capsper Kynge, a former diplomat who has worked for Microsoft, told the NYT that Microsoft’s action became “the smoking gun that many Europeans had been looking for,” pushing them to look at alternative options. Some ICC workers have reportedly switched over to Swiss email service Proton, for example.
Cryptopolitan reported: 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 American’s role in European defense and new tariffs on EU goods.