When the Internet Stood Still - How Big Tech Dependencies Became Our Digital Achilles' Heel

On November 18, 2025, shortly after 11 a.m., what experts have feared for years happened: The internet collapsed. Not completely, but enough to show how dangerous our dependence on a few US tech giants has become.

ChatGPT stopped delivering answers. The once-speedy AI assistant Mistral only displayed the warning “Connection problem.” X (formerly Twitter) was unreachable. Truth Social, US President Donald Trump’s platform, showed only error messages. Dozens of prominent websites and services worldwide were paralyzed – all because of a single company: Cloudflare.

A hidden error in a bot defense service, and millions of users worldwide suddenly found themselves in digital darkness. What’s particularly frightening: It’s not the first time. And it won’t be the last.

October 2025: When Amazon AWS took Perplexity offline for hours

Less than a month earlier, on October 20, 2025, a similar scenario occurred. Amazon Web Services (AWS) – the world’s largest cloud provider – suffered a technical disruption. The consequence: Perplexity, the emerging AI search assistant, was completely unreachable for several hours.

Perplexity is not just some small service. The company positions itself as a serious alternative to Google and ChatGPT, with billions in investor funds flowing to the company annually. But behind the scenes, a fatal vulnerability was revealed: Perplexity is massively dependent on Amazon AWS.

And it gets worse: On November 18, 2025, when Cloudflare went down, Perplexity was once again unreachable – this time because of Cloudflare. Perplexity has a double dependency: If AWS fails, the service is offline. If Cloudflare fails, the service is offline.

Two single points of failure. Two American tech giants deciding the fate of an AI service subsidized by billions in investor money.

Europe’s AI hope Mistral? Runs on American infrastructure

It becomes even more critical when looking at European providers positioning themselves as alternatives to US services.

Mistral AI, the French AI startup, is considered Europe’s champion in the fight against the dominance of OpenAI and Google. The EU supports the company, politicians celebrate it as a beacon of European tech sovereignty.

The reality looks different:

• Mistral uses Cerebras (a US company) for its chat service
• Microsoft and Google Cloud provide the computing power
• Cloudflare handles network infrastructure and DDoS protection

On November 18, 2025, when Cloudflare went down? Mistral was unreachable.

The paradox: Europe’s AI champion is so deeply embedded in American tech infrastructure that it fails with every major US outage. The “European alternative” turns out, upon closer examination, to be an illusion built on Big Tech foundations.

The backdoor nobody sees

These dependencies are not accidents. They are systematic.

Dennis-Kenji Kipker, Scientific Director at the cyberintelligence institute, warns: “If US cloud services fail or are partially unavailable in a relatively short time, we here in the European Union will no longer be able to work within a few days.” (Source: Tagesschau)

The problem begins with something seemingly trivial: convenience. AWS, Microsoft Azure, Google Cloud, Cloudflare – they offer top-tier services at unbeatable prices. For startups and even established companies, it’s the fastest path to scaling.

But with every integration, Big Tech sneaks in through the back door.

And suddenly your entire business model sits on foreign soil. Soil that can be pulled out from under your feet at any time – through technical failures, political decisions, or simply by the will of a US president.

The Cloud Act: America’s digital leverage tool

The technical outages are just the tip of the iceberg. The real problem is political.

The Cloud Act, signed by Donald Trump during his first term, allows the US government to access cloud-stored data – even if that data is located outside the United States.

What does this mean concretely?

• Your company stores sensitive customer data in AWS’s “EU region”? The US government can access it.
• Your startup uses Microsoft Azure for product development? Your trade secrets can be seized.
• Your government agency runs on Google Cloud? American intelligence services theoretically have access.

Kipker warns: “The incumbent US President Donald Trump connects technological dependencies in the European Union and Germany with his foreign policy actions. That means, while we say on one hand that we could decide freely on foreign policy, he connects matters that actually have nothing to do with it.”

Translation: If something doesn’t suit the US government – whether it’s trade policy, military support, or diplomatic positioning – it has a powerful leverage tool: simply pull the plug.

Bank transactions? Paralyzed. Government agencies? Unable to work. Digital supply chains? Collapsed.

Europe would be non-functional within days.

When the outage becomes a weapon

The outages on November 18 and October 20, 2025, were technical glitches. But they show how vulnerable we are.

Imagine if it were intentional:

• A geopolitical conflict escalates
• The US government orders AWS, Microsoft Azure, and Google Cloud to cease services for European government customers
• Simultaneously, Cloudflare, Akamai, and other CDN providers are instructed to stop protecting European websites

The result? A digital blackout lasting not hours, but weeks. Perhaps months.

This isn’t science fiction. This is the logical consequence of our current infrastructure.

Europe fights back – but far too slowly

There are glimmers of hope. Individual cities and states are beginning to counter.

Lyon: The city that turned its back on Microsoft

The French city of Lyon took a radical step: complete exit from Microsoft Office.

Instead:

• OnlyOffice replaces Microsoft Office
• Linux replaces Windows
• PostgreSQL replaces proprietary databases
• Jitsi (instead of Microsoft Teams) for video conferences
• Nextcloud for file storage
• Matrix for secure communication

The result? An open collaboration suite called “Territoire Numérique Ouvert”, completely independent of US corporations. Devices are used longer, costs decrease, data sovereignty increases.

Schleswig-Holstein: Germany’s lighthouse

Schleswig-Holstein is considered Germany’s pioneer. The state has:

• Replaced Exchange/Outlook with Open-Xchange/Thunderbird
• Replaced Microsoft Office with LibreOffice
• Initiated gradual migration to Linux
• Migrated over 40,000 accounts
• Transferred more than 100 million emails and calendar entries

The project works. Other German authorities are following suit.

ZenDiS: Germany’s answer to Big Tech

In the old Opel administration building in Bochum sits ZenDiS – the “Center for Digital Sovereignty.” It drives the introduction of open-source software in German administrations.

The flagship product: openDesk – a bundled suite of email, calendar, word processing, and file management. All open source. All independent.

About 100,000 users already work with it. Managing Director Pamela Krosta-Hartl explains: “We look: where in Europe, in the open-source area, are there solutions that have really reached a very good level of maturity? We combine them into a complete package.”

The problem? ZenDiS is massively underfunded. 16 million euros were allocated for setup – after that, the company must finance itself through projects.

Experts are frustrated: While the US pumps billions into tech infrastructure, Europe’s flagship project struggles to survive.

The harsh truth: Germany is only at the beginning

The WDR Monitor editorial team asked all 16 German states about their digital sovereignty status.

The sobering result:

• Only two states (Thuringia and Schleswig-Holstein) consistently rely on independent IT solutions
• All others consider digital sovereignty important but still largely rely on US applications

Kipker summarizes: “Currently, we’re not very well positioned. I don’t want to say we’re bare, but we’ve simply neglected the topic for far too long.”

Why true independence is possible: The CamoCopy example

But there’s another way. Completely different.

CamoCopy, a privacy-friendly AI platform, shows what digital sovereignty can look like in practice.

CamoCopy’s infrastructure:

✅ No Cloudflare or Amazon dependencies

✅ Exclusively EU data centers with full hardware control

✅ Use of open-source software

The result?

• November 18, 2025, Cloudflare outage: CamoCopy ran without interruption
• October 20, 2025, AWS outage: CamoCopy was fully accessible
• No dependence on US providers – no political or technical leverage

CamoCopy proves: True independence is not only possible – it’s economically sensible and technically feasible.

While Perplexity, Mistral, and others fail with every Big Tech outage, CamoCopy keeps running. This is true digital sovereignty.

The turning point: Why action must be taken now

The October and November 2025 outages are warning shots.

They show us:

1. Technical dependence is existentially dangerous – one error at Cloudflare, and millions of services worldwide stand still
2. Political dependence becomes a weapon – the Cloud Act makes European data pawns of American interests
3. European “alternatives” are often mirages – even Mistral runs on American infrastructure
4. True sovereignty is possible – examples like Lyon, Schleswig-Holstein, and CamoCopy prove it

Kipker demands: “What’s needed is a central registry where you can see at a glance: what is a digitally sovereign solution? What isn’t?”

Without this awareness, without massively increased investments in European infrastructure, Europe remains vulnerable to blackmail.

The question every company must ask itself

Are you willing to build your business on foreign soil?

Are you willing to trust that AWS will never fail again? That Cloudflare will always be available? That the US government will never abuse its power?

Or do you choose digital sovereignty?

The answer determines whether your company, your government agency, your data will still be yours in five years – or whether you were just a tenant on foreign land who can be evicted at any time.

The October and November 2025 outages weren’t endpoints. They were starting points.

The beginning of an era where digital dependence becomes Europe’s greatest weakness.

Or the beginning of an era where Europe finally wakes up and reclaims its digital sovereignty.

What will it be?

🔐 True digital independence begins with the right infrastructure: While Perplexity, Mistral, and others fail with every Big Tech outage, sovereign solutions like CamoCopy rely on 100% European infrastructure – without AWS, without Cloudflare, without dependencies. That’s the difference between lip service and true sovereignty.