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.
