The enforcement of laws matters just as much as the quantity of the laws in my opinion. In this case the argument being made by Facebook is basically "everyone does this so why are we being selectively targeted?" Obviously it makes sense to start with the biggest offenders but it's hard to believe that the EU's apparent tunnel vision on applying the law to American companies is because of a lack of resources.
But Facebook and Google are the biggest and most flagrant offenders. It wouldn't make sense to go after anyone else first, and you want to have a precedent so you can go after other companies (or other companies will stop committing crimes of their own volition because being litigated against is expensive).
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 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.
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.
> European companies are just as capable of violating the law as American companies.
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.
> 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 obvious counterpoint here is the Volkswagen emissions scandal. Europe generally went "oh, maybe we should make it harder to cheat on emissions" whereas the US went "here's the fine for not meeting emissions, here's the fine for cheating, oh by the way, you can't sell these cars anymore since they don't meet emissions, and mind the class action lawyers on your way out." That said, it could well be the cause that the EU would have been equally nonplussed had GM been the heart of the scandal instead of VW, but there is room to argue that Germany isn't treating domestic companies with the same vigor that it does foreign ones.
I think that's a fair point, and I completely agree that the emissions scandals were horribly handled by the EU. For the record though, Germany actually did an arguably better job than the EU commision (actually doing investigations into the fraud and raiding several car companies), while the EU appears to have done very little.
But neither have not done as well as Switzerland (banning VW diesel cars entirely), South Korea (criminal case against VW executives), Netherlands (class action and investigating the reacquisition of the subsidies paid to VW previously), Australia (forced recalls and class action lawsuits), or America (as you've already mentioned).
I don't know whether the car industry is the best example of "EU interventionism" done right, given how central the car industry is to Europe's enconomy (which is a whole different issue). I'm not sure whether they would've treated non-EU companies differently.
> Because it's difficult to believe that there's only enough resources to prosecute a handful of companies at a time.
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.
Your point is valid but it's also separate from the situation I was discussing. The response you quoted was general because the statement I was reacting to was written generally rather than specifically about this one instance in isolation.
