Or Google and Facebook will be held to a higher standard of compliance.

Quite possibly, but Google and Facebook are known entities that can afford flotillas of lawyers. The next up-and-coming startup to reach the "backlash" stage of the hype cycle will be a much more vulnerable target to European regulators. And if it's too easy for some hated target to comply, then the government can ratchet up the regulations even higher, and Google and Facebook will have the resources to keep up while the newer market entrants will be fucked. Google and Facebook will only be at risk if they deliberately flout regulations the way e.g. Volkswagen did.

Which goes back to the point of loving to target American companies.

European here and I feel this is a bit shortsighted. Not really sure the sentiment is to target US companies (if for nothing else ours are quite open/interconnected economies and there's lots of fondness for US services - check both market share as well as revenues) but really.. Facebook's tax of 5k/year in the UK, the double irish with a dutch sandwich, the backroom deals from the 80s with the Irish govt.. these are global practices which truly devastate everyone in the long run. I actually trust bureaucrats to step in and audit - and subjectively think they very often do a decent job of explaining rationales given europeans' known tendency of bickering on pretty much everything.

> European here

Same.

> Facebook's tax of 5k/year in the UK, the double irish with a dutch sandwich, the backroom deals from the 80s with the Irish govt.. these are global practices which truly devastate everyone in the long run.

And are all legal, and designed as so by the government. Auditing won't make a difference, since it is legal. Don't like it? Make it illegal. Simple as that.

> actually trust bureaucrats to step in and audit - and subjectively think they very often do a decent job of explaining rationales given europeans' known tendency of bickering on pretty much everything.

Oh, no issue with that. My issue is with this:

> Or Google and Facebook will be held to a higher standard of compliance.

They are (making it illegal) but they are making the law broad enough that it’s going be difficult to circumvent by lobbyists.

Lobbyist don't circumvent the law, politicians do.

This would be a valid point or topic of debate should the subject be an actual law (the 70 years copyright law for instance?)

What we're dealing with here is loopholes and nothing more under various incarnations - take patents in the US or the lax tax policies of Malta or Isle of Man as an example - and you'll get a sense on why a bit of cleaning up is sorely needed.

> What we're dealing with here is loopholes and nothing more under various incarnations - take patents in the US or the lax tax policies of Malta or Isle of Man as an example - and you'll get a sense on why a bit of cleaning up is sorely needed.

Oh, I agree, it definitely needs cleaning up.

> Or Google and Facebook will be held to a higher standard of compliance.

Than whom else? VK? Baidu? ICQ?

If you also attribute, say, US rules about lead content in children's toys to a "love of targeting" Chinese companies, then sure.

Otherwise, it would be a good idea to at least accept the possibility of sincerity when different polities want different rules than the US.

Indeed. It's about targeting misbehaviour.

Suggesting that US companies should be above reproach or oversight, by definition, or that the EU would treat local or Asian companies who tried to pull the same stunts more generously is not based on evidence.

If US corporates try to flout European law, they'll suffer consequences. Market cap does not provide a free pass for being a bad actor.

Nobody is suggesting that, quite the opposite, actually:

> Or Google and Facebook will be held to a higher standard of compliance.

Again, I don't see an issue with different rules, I see an issue with this:

> Or Google and Facebook will be held to a higher standard of compliance.

This is an insightful comment. It costs a lot of money to stay in compliance. One of the charges leveled against the ISO was that it was designed to be hindrance for Japanese companies to compete, because the organization ha(s|d) a lot of influence from Western entities.

Some would say the EU’s single market operates in a similar way... but only for countries outside of that group :-(

Exactly. Google has the perfect setup as do not need personal data for their ads. Search gives ads based on what you search.