I just tried to do a search and it immediately asks me to create an account???
I'm just not seeing the connect here I understand you are trying to fight spam/abuse but seems like a tough uphill battle especially when VPNs solve the privacy issue entirely.
I'm also not sure why this obsession with EU is so prevalent and misguided. EU is privacy regulated, not a guarantee of privacy. GDPR is better than what many places have, but hosting in UE doesn’t magically mean the data is safe, it doesnt mean 0 knowledge encryption, no insider access, no breaches, no subpoenas, no natsec carveouts, or uniformly enforced across borders.
"Create an account" is simply generating a random account number, but I _just_ pushed a fix to make that "auto-happen" for you if you try to simply search — you'll be presented with an option to solve a captcha or pay for access, then get redirected back to the search after that.
The "EU obsession" for us is mostly about trying to buy and stimulate "the local economy" as much as possible, but YMMV and you're right it doesn't mean any of those things.