As for your belief that American companies are being unfairly targeted, this also doesn't make much sense to me. European companies wouldn't break the laws in the first place, Asian companies don't really compete in the European "web services" market, so the only major source of rights violations is going to be American companies.
If American companies don't want to follow European laws, they shouldn't be doing business in Europe. And why are you complaining about in which order those companies are being punished for breaking the law?
European companies are just as capable of violating the law as American companies. Part of the argument being made by critics is that there's been little sign that comparable effort has been made by European governance to investigate its domestic companies as rigorously as it's been investigating America's.
>If American companies don't want to follow European laws, they shouldn't be doing business in Europe.
The counterpoint would be that the companies are only breaking the law because the EU decided that its laws can be applied globally.
>And why are you complaining about in which order those companies are being punished for breaking the law?
Because it's difficult to believe that there's only enough resources to prosecute a handful of companies at a time.
I never said they aren't capable, I said that they would generally choose not to (not to mention that "hosted in Europe" is actually now becoming a bit of a selling point because of the pro-privacy regulations there).
> Part of the argument being made by critics is that there's been little sign that comparable effort has been made by European governance to investigate its domestic companies as rigorously as it's been investigating America's.
European regulators are very strict with European companies in a variety of ways. Just because it doesn't make international news every week is not proof that it doesn't happen (I work for SUSE remotely and my impression is that the German government is very meticulous about verifying that companies aren't breaking the law.)
> The counterpoint would be that the companies are only breaking the law because the EU decided that its laws can be applied globally.
Facebook and Google do business with people in Europe (provide a service and use them as ad-fodder). This is similar to exporting goods to Europe -- you need to obey the laws of the country if you want to do business there. They actually have an even better deal than than that, because there are no tariffs for online communication! Not to mention that Facebook and Google have physical hardware in European countries.
They aren't enforcing their rules globally, they're saying "if you want to engage with our citizens you have to play by our rules." Facebook and Google can always choose to block those countries (like they do Iran).
> Because it's difficult to believe that there's only enough resources to prosecute a handful of companies at a time.
This case was by a privacy watchdog, a private organisation. I find it very believable that they don't have enough resources to sue the likely several thousand American companies that are potentially violating EU laws. I also would be surprised if the Belgian government had enough cash lying around to do that too.
The decision in question was in a civil suit. The suit was brought by a "privacy watchdog" organization that's presumably at least partially government funded to investigate cases like this, but that doesn't prevent anyone else from suing as well.
So if you know of a European company with similarly privacy-violating practices, what's stopping you from filing suit? Or if you're not an EU citizen, you might still be able to get some less corporate-friendly group to investigate.
