The EU just finds a new thing to fine each time. Since the scope of US consumer internet companies is so vast, they can mine €1b fines more or less limitlessly.

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vrganj 12 hours ago | parent | next [-]

Maybe US consumer internet companies should try following our laws?

What do they expect if they come to our countries and break the law there? Of course they're gonna get fined?!

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brainwad 12 hours ago | parent [-]

The argument is that the laws are so broad that the EU can always find a violation even when companies try to follow the law, and that they mostly target foreign companies. TBH I find this focus defensible: the big US companies are just so much bigger that it makes more sense to police them than insignificant local players. But it is a good cash cow.

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vrganj 11 hours ago | parent [-]

The problem is that American companies try to follow the letter of the law, while going as much against the spirit of the law as possible. This is why they complain it's "too broad", because they can't avoid the spirit as they would like to.

Example here: Facebook changing their ToS to claim usage itself constitutes freely given, informed consent under GDPR. No it doesn't, you knew that was against the spirit, you did it anyways, you got fined.

This is fundamentally how the EU legal system works, you're expected to do what the law wants from you, not find some clever way to avoid what the law is for while ticking the right checkboxes.

I had a whole in-depth conversation on this not too long ago, check it out if you want more context: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48707697

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brainwad 10 hours ago | parent [-]

Sometimes the "spirit of the law" seems to be "degrade your offerings until the European competitors who keep pestering us stop". Little consideration ever seems to be given to telling those European businesses to make a good product themselves. European competition regulators could be weighing consumer welfare more heavily.

	▲	vrganj 9 hours ago \| parent [-]
		I'm not sure I've observed any of that. American companies usually degrade out of spite in my experience - they'd rather not offer the product than to offer it lawfully.

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zombot 13 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

It's a win-win: Wild west for the US and fines for the countries that have laws and enforce them.