Non-EU vendorDNS Privacy & FilteringHeadquarters: US

Google Public DNS: sovereignty score and 8 European alternatives

Google Public DNS is a public recursive DNS resolver that users and organisations can configure as an alternative to their own or their provider's DNS service. It is available over classic DNS and over encrypted transports, DNS over HTTPS (DoH) and DNS over TLS (DoT). It is served worldwide through anycast routing, which sends each query to the nearest resolver. Google describes it as its own implementation of the DNS standards.

The service is operated by Google LLC, a subsidiary of Alphabet Inc. in the United States, and is covered by Google's general privacy policy. Google states that client IP addresses are kept only temporarily, in logs erased within 24 to 48 hours, and that permanent logs are anonymised to city or region level. Google does not state where its resolver servers are located, and neither the Public DNS pages nor the privacy page mention the GDPR or EU data residency. For European organisations, DNS queries are a sensitive data flow: the resolver is outside the EU, and no EU-specific processing commitment for this service was found.

See the 8 European alternatives ↓Assess your stack with Google Public DNS pre-selected

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Sovereignty score

17 / 1000 = high exposure
100 = sovereign

Jurisdiction SOV-210
Headquartered in the US: CLOUD Act and FISA 702
Data residency SOV-30
No hosting in Europe (US)
Cryptographic key sovereignty SOV-320
Key management with a non-European vendor
Freedom from lock-in SOV-640
Closed source: switching requires data migration
Source & runtime sovereignty SOV-4 · SOV-615
Closed source, runtime with the vendor

SOV codes: the matching objective in the European Commission's Cloud Sovereignty Framework. Official source

How the score is calculated

Facts and evidence

Last checked October 10, 2026

Headquarters	US (US)Verified by hand
EU adequacy decision	Only for companies individually certified under the EU-US Data Privacy FrameworkVerified by hand
Sovereignty model	Vendor-hosted (non-EU)Verified by hand
Data hosting	USVerified by hand
Open-source	NoVerified by hand
GDPR-compliant	NoVendor-stated
Category	DNS Privacy & Filtering
Type	Product
Website	developers.google.com ↗

How we verify · Something wrong? Suggest a correction

Top EU-based & GDPR-compliant alternatives to Google Public DNS

The European alternatives to Google Public DNS come from our knowledge base of over 6,800 vendors. We only list vendors headquartered in the EU or the EEA; fully European-owned vendors rank before vendors with a foreign owner. For each alternative you see the country, the open-source status and a short description.

Score per alternative: 0 = high exposure, 100 = sovereign

24 European DNS Privacy & Filtering vendors are in the catalogue. View the whole category · Submit an alternative · View category on the map

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Why digital sovereignty matters with Google Public DNS

Google Public DNS is headquartered in the United States. US vendors fall under the CLOUD Act and FISA 702: US authorities can compel access to data, even when that data sits in a European data centre. That is the core of the jurisdictional exposure in our model.

Google Public DNS hosts data outside the EU (US). Personal data therefore leaves the EU, which requires a transfer mechanism under the GDPR and pulls the data residency score down.

Google Public DNS is closed source and hosted by the vendor. The encryption keys and the runtime sit with the vendor and switching requires data migration. Ask about bring-your-own-key, export options and open standards.

What this means for your organisation depends on your whole stack and context. The free assessment weighs Google Public DNS together with your other vendors and gives a total score, a heatmap and the main risk drivers.

Frequently asked questions

What is the best European alternative to Google Public DNS?

It depends on your use case. Strong EU alternatives to Google Public DNS include AdGuard DNS, AdGuard Home and Blocky. On this page you can compare 8 EU alternatives by jurisdiction, data residency and open-source status.

Are there open-source alternatives to Google Public DNS?

Yes. Open-source EU alternatives to Google Public DNS include AdGuard Home and Blocky. These keep your data fully under your own control and let you self-host if you want to.

Is Google Public DNS GDPR-compliant and where is the data hosted?

Google Public DNS is headquartered in US and hosts data in US. Its GDPR compliance is limited or unclear. For full EU data residency the EU alternatives on this page usually offer more certainty.

Details and sources

Verified by handHeadquarters, owner, hosting locations and licence have been checked by us against public sources. Free of charge and for every vendor, not a paid label. Nothing in this knowledge base is taken over automatically. Last checked on October 10, 2026.

Sources

Public sources used in the latest check of this record.

Compliance evidence

The links below point to the vendor's own public documents. We only record what we found: a missing link means "not found publicly", not "not compliant".

No public compliance evidence has been recorded for this vendor yet. Do you know its DPA or subprocessor list? Something wrong? Suggest a correction

Digital sovereignty in DNS Privacy & Filtering

DNS Privacy & Filtering: Privacy-friendly DNS services, ad blocking and DNS filtering. In this category the choice of vendor determines who has legal access to your data, where that data lives and how easily you can switch later.

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