[namelost]

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

[philwelch]

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.

[ucaetano]

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

[amorroxic]

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.

[_jal]

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.