The chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Court suddenly couldn't access his email. According to Microsoft, that's because of US sanctions against the court's employees. The Trump administration was not amused by the Court's arrest warrant against the Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu.
The main takeaway from this episode is that those looking to protect themselves from Trump's wrath would be wise not to depend on any companies from his country. According to the Dutch newspaper NRC, the International Criminal Court now uses a German alternative to Microsoft, though it has not officially commented on the switch.
The German alternative, OpenDesk, allows users to send emails, edit text-based documents, create presentations, share files, and make video calls. It is open source, so anyone can view and improve its code.
The same applies to another alternative, also from Germany, called Nextcloud. This office software has been tested by around 75 researchers from five Dutch universities since the beginning of 2025. Maybe other institutions could switch to it as well?
Dependency
Dutch higher education is highly dependent on American tech companies, especially Microsoft. Not only do students and staff use its software extensively, but their IT staff are tied to a wide range of specialised Microsoft software. In addition, Dutch universities store a lot of data in Microsoft's cloud.
Dutch lecturers have been sounding the alarm about this. Last Wednesday, the knowledge centre for practice-oriented research, DCC-PO, stated that the dominance of parties such as Google and Microsoft threatens the autonomy of Dutch researchers. In their view, universities should adopt more open-source tools and open standards.
In July, the Young Academy also warned that students and staff at Dutch higher education institutions have no idea what tech companies are doing with their data. By outsourcing the management of IT systems, these educational institutions are losing technical knowledge and control. As a result, they are becoming increasingly dependent on big tech, putting academic freedom and independence at risk.
Fickle
Seven Dutch universities and one university college are already on the State of Florida's sanctions list for severing or freezing ties with Israeli institutions. With a fickle president like Donald Trump, educational institutions could also face “punishment” at any moment.
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