[avar]

Because if the situation is reversed and e.g. the local police subpoenas your ISP to find people that are "illegally torrenting" or whatever they won't include you. That's happened a lot within Europe.

Even if the foreign government spies more nether jurisdiction is likely to care enough about you specifically to make an international case of it.

In other words I'd think most Americans would be better off proxying through Europe, and most Europeans would be better off proxying through the US.

Even better would be to proxy through a third country that your own country is unlikely to cooperate with, and which won't care about you personally.

E.g. I wouldn't want to live in Iran or North Korea, but I'd think proxying DNS through them would in some way maximize my privacy if I was living in Europe or the US.

I'll never travel to either of them, and my authorities are vanishingly unlikely to cooperate with either of them for anything short of murder.

[ohmaigad]

Except proxying through Iran or North Korea literally puts a target on you locally. Not really the brightest idea. As for other things - it is not black or white, depends where you are and from that you choose the best option for you. The "copyright" cartels are mostly American so it kinda does not even make sense to use US in order to avoid that, just makes it easier for them.