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jxjnskkzxxhx | 7 months ago

You guys remember how 5+ years ago, an headline like this on HN would invariably prompt cries from the Americans that this was just the Europeans finding excuses to take advantage and steal from poor innocent American companies. How the mood has changed on this huh. I'm glad to see the European approach vindicated, even if at times not strong enough.

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lompad|7 months ago

And not only are those cries wrong, reality is quite the opposite. The vast majority of fines are towards european businesses. Big Tech aren't the only ones who violate data privacy standards all the time. [0] You just don't read about those here, so people like to just assume those fines don't exist.

Additionally, it helps to actually learn how the current law developed - it primarily was modeled after the german Bundesdatenschutzgesetz, which was put into law in a modern form in the 90s, long before FAANG.

[0] see the tracker: https://www.enforcementtracker.com/

octo888|7 months ago

Worth noting the tracker does not track which fines are currently being contested (in an obvious manner). i.e. do not assume all the fines you see there have actually been paid

Though probably safe to assume the smaller fines against smaller companies with smaller lobbying^H^H^H^H^H^H legal teams most likely have :-)

rafaelmn|7 months ago

I went to the site and sorted by fine - I needed to go to the bottom of second list to find a non US company ? By the time I get to pages that are mostly non US companies the fines are two orders of magnitude smaller and dropping fast - do you have any aggregate view to compare ? I would not be surprised at all that indeed most of the fines were towards US companies in total amount.

Raed667|7 months ago

I was surprised to see doctors and even a bakery on the list!

riffraff|7 months ago

5 years? I think it was last week.

gdwatson|7 months ago

As an American, my reservations about European privacy laws are related to jurisdiction, and none of them applies here. I welcome this decision.

phendrenad2|7 months ago

No no, you misunderstand. Over here in America we have given up on fighting it and prefer to let mega-corps like Google and Meta own the advertising space. Smaller companies quickly moved to a subscription model, at least until the EU finds a way to make money illegal.

andsoitis|7 months ago

> cries from the Americans that this was just the Europeans finding excuses to take advantage and steal from poor innocent American companies

Spotify found in violation of EU data protection laws by Stockholm Court - https://www.investing.com/news/stock-market-news/spotify-fou...

Or what about Enel (Italian): https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/italy-regulator-fine...

Or Criteo (French): https://techcrunch.com/2023/06/22/adtech-giant-criteo-his-wi...

H&M (Swedish) fined for breaking GDPR over employee surveillance: https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-54418936

etc.

jokoon|7 months ago

Probably people who own stock in those companies

samplatt|7 months ago

Er... No, sorry, I don't remember anyone saying that at all.

surgical_fire|7 months ago

Amazing. On like every thread of EU fining some US company for things such as privacy violations there's a stream of mor... er... users claiming that EU is only using that as a revenue stream to extract money from US companies because they have no homegrown businesses or similar bullshit (despite European companies being fines the same way).

Hell, you can find some of the same moronic arguments on this very thread still.

bigyabai|7 months ago

It entirely saturates discussions about companies that rhyme with "Snapple" in my experience.

jxjnskkzxxhx|7 months ago

LOL there's people saying it in this thread.

dogleash|7 months ago

>You guys remember how 5+ years ago, an headline like this on HN would invariably prompt cries from the Americans

I remember it. I'm pretty sure it's always just been the sellouts that work for anti-consumer tech companies (and the wannabes). Sometimes they're rationalizing their career to themselves and us, othertimes they're aware and just saying whatever they think will keep the con running for as long as possible.

One of the things HN serves as is a no-risk place for scrupleless software businesspeople to practice how to swindle nerds with specious arguments.

jimbob45|7 months ago

[deleted]

MangoToupe|7 months ago

Personally, as an American, I'd happily push our economy down the stairs to dissociate from people who espouse this sort of attitude.

baxtr|7 months ago

The economy is also in tatters because Germans relied too much on US and Chinese markets.

saubeidl|7 months ago

All of these have the same root cause. American imperialism that has for too long been tolerated here. Thankfully, things are starting to change.

dmantis|7 months ago

Money and economy is an instrument, not a goal. If a person lives a rat life, being constantly spied, manipulated and sold, what's the point of being richer? To buy what? The most precious thing of freedom and independence is lost already then.

Without dignity it's better to die.

hsbauauvhabzb|7 months ago

So in your eyes, a race to the moral and ethical bottom is the only way a society should function?

watwut|7 months ago

> Also a coincidence that Trump happens to be pushing the poor innocent Germans to contribute to their own defense.

Trump is literally supporting Russia.

123yawaworht456|7 months ago

>How the mood has changed on this huh.

has it? if anything, EU continues to fleece US companies with nonsensical, hastily-implemented laws and absurd fines.

https://duckduckgo.com/?q=EU+DSA+twitter

piva00|7 months ago

Those companies choose to operate in the EU, if they don't like the legal environment they can just pack up and leave. Why do you think they don't do that? Why do you feel the need to defend companies breaking the law?

cycomanic|7 months ago

It's funny how American always bring up data privacy violation fines as fleecing US companies, but never complain about the fines against car manufacturers in the US (which have been largely against non-US companies)[https://young-lawgroup.com/news/the-largest-auto-fines-in-u-... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volkswagen_emissions_scandal].

Just to clarify I completely agree with the fines in both the US and EU, remember big corporations are not your "team" (for the vast majority of you).

surgical_fire|7 months ago

Meta is very welcome to stop operating in EU to not be subject to their laws.

Or, you know, they could just respect the law. Like other companies that operate here. Novel concept I know.

And, to complement your lack of research, EU companies are subject to those laws and are frequently fined as well for those violations.