The digital sovereignty glossary
Cloud Act, end-to-end encryption, fingerprinting: the terms you see everywhere, explained simply. A clear definition, and where it actually plays out.
What is an email alias?
One front address per service, forwarding to your real inbox. If an alias starts getting spam, you know who leaked your address and you cut it off.
What are AOSP and custom ROMs?
Android exists without Google: AOSP is its open-source foundation, a custom ROM is an Android rebuilt on top of it. Your phone can often live again de-Googled.
What is self-hosting?
Self-hosting means running your services (files, photos, calendar) on a machine at home rather than renting them from Google or another cloud provider.
What is encryption at rest and in transit?
Encryption in transit: the padlock during the journey. At rest: the padlock in the warehouse. Google does both, but keeps the keys. Who can read your files?
What is end-to-end encryption?
End-to-end encryption (E2EE) locks a message on the sender's device and only unlocks it on the recipient's. Nobody in between can read it, not even the host.
What is the Cloud Act?
The Cloud Act, a 2018 US law, lets American authorities demand your data from a US provider, even when it is hosted in Europe. A plain-language explanation.
What are third-party cookies?
The site's own cookie keeps your cart; third-party cookies follow you from site to site for ads. The difference, the announced decline, and what comes next.
What is a data broker?
A data broker collects and resells your profile without you ever being its customer. What it knows about you, how it makes money, and what the GDPR lets you demand.
What is degoogling?
Degoogling means replacing Google services one by one (Gmail, Chrome, Drive, Maps) with alternatives you choose, service by service, at your own pace.
What is delisting (the right to be forgotten in search)?
Delisting removes a page from search results for your name, without erasing the page itself. The difference with the right to erasure, and how to request it from Google.
What are the DMA and DSA?
DMA and DSA, the two European regulations applied in 2023-2024: the first reins in gatekeeper giants, the second covers platform content and transparency.
What is private DNS?
Every site you visit starts with a question to a directory, and the directory sees everything. Private DNS encrypts those queries and can block trackers and ads.
What is two-factor authentication (2FA)?
A second lock on your accounts: 2FA requires a temporary code on top of your password. And why a dedicated app protects you better than SMS codes.
What is the right to erasure?
The right to erasure (GDPR, Article 17) lets you demand the deletion of your data, for free. How to exercise it, within what deadline, and when a refusal is legitimate.
What is the network effect?
A service is worth the number of people using it: that is the network effect. Why leaving WhatsApp is a social challenge before a technical one.
What is the fediverse?
Social networks that talk to each other through a common protocol, like email: you pick your provider and you can follow everyone.
What is fingerprinting?
Fingerprinting recognizes you without a single cookie, through the unique combination of your browser's settings: screen, fonts, time zone. Deleting cookies is not enough.
What is Google Takeout?
Google Takeout is the official tool to download a copy of your Google data: emails, photos, history. The exit door required by the GDPR.
What are IMAP and CalDAV?
IMAP for email, CalDAV for calendars: two open standards any compatible app can use. This is what keeps your data portable from one service to another.
What is digital independence?
Digital independence means no longer depending on a single player for your emails, photos or calendar: no one account should be able to take everything down.
What is prompt injection?
Prompt injection: instructions hidden in content an AI is about to read, to hijack its behavior. The number one risk of connected assistants.
What is a walled garden?
A walled garden is an ecosystem that is smooth on the inside and rough toward the outside. Apple's and Google's comfort is real, and that is exactly what holds you.
What is Manifest V3?
Manifest V3, the rules Chrome imposes on its extensions, weakens the most effective ad blockers. What it changes, and what Firefox and Brave do instead.
What is metadata?
Who writes to whom, when, from where, how often: metadata is the envelope of your messages. Even encrypted, a message reveals a lot.
What is a NAS?
A NAS is a small storage server plugged in at home: your files stay in the house, reachable like a cloud, with no subscription and no foreign server.
What is open source?
Open source software publishes its recipe: code anyone can read and verify. What that changes for trust, and why open does not mean free of charge.
What is a passkey?
A passkey replaces your password with a cryptographic key stored on your device: nothing to remember, nothing to phish. Just choose carefully where you keep it.
What is ad profiling?
Searches, trips, emails: advertising builds an identikit portrait of you and sells it to advertisers. The real price of free, explained simply.
What is the GDPR?
Adopted in 2016, enforced since May 2018, the GDPR gives you concrete rights: access, export, erasure. What it makes possible, and what it cannot shield you from.
What is digital sovereignty?
Digital sovereignty means keeping control of your data and your tools, without depending on a player subject to foreign law. A plain-language definition.
What is vendor lock-in?
Vendor lock-in is when leaving costs so much that you stay: closed formats, painful exports, intertwined services. The way out starts with your data.
What is a VPN?
A VPN encrypts your traffic and hides your IP address, nothing more. What it really does, and the misconception about anonymity to correct first.
What is a VPS?
A VPS is a computer rented in a datacenter, all yours: self-hosting without a machine in your living room. A powerful option, aimed at advanced users.
What is WebKit?
WebKit is Safari's rendering engine. Three engines share the web: WebKit, Blink (Chrome and derivatives) and Gecko (Firefox). And Blink dominates, in Google's hands.
What is zero-knowledge encryption?
The host keeps the safe, you alone hold the key: it can neither read your files nor hand them over in clear text. The trade-off: lost password, lost data.