Puppets or Partners? Europe is America’s Biggest Subsidiary

I’m going to start this post differently. No elaborate metaphors, no Star Trek analogies, no code. Just a simple question that has been eating away at my brain since I moved to Europe:

Why the hell do I need an American account to download my own government’s application?

Let me give you some context. I live in Italy. I pay taxes in Italy. I have an Italian fiscal code. And when I need to access the official Italian government app (or Post Office app) to check my tax situation, what do I do? I open the Google Play Store, an American store, with my data stored on American servers, subject to American legislation, to download an application from a European country’s government.