> For internet-based companies, they can still continue to serve EU customers while keeping all servers in the US.
That's not the case though. If they are serving EU residents, they have to abide.
That's not the case though. If they are serving EU residents, they have to abide.
Also, the EU might block them from the market completely.
In a hypothetical scenario where, say, Google pulls out, would EU dare block google.com? Given Google's revenue model is largely based on ad impressions, as long as they don't set up a firewall, Google gets all the business they need.
If you think that you can run a global business and skirt the laws of the second largest economy and still make a legitimate profit within that economy... Well, then you need to think again.
On the other hand, if google thinks that they can do without the EU market they are free to block all EU citizens from both their services and their ad serving platforms.
Then webpage owners won't make money anymore off of having Google ads, so they'd replace them with different ads and you'd have the most flourishing ad industry in the EU within a few months.
But even just blocking access to google.com/.fr/.de/etc. would hurt Google quite a bit. Companies pay a lot of money to bend the truth and have themselves appear as the top result. As far as I'm aware, that still is the main source of income for Google.
Would they dare it? If pulling out means that Google disregards, therefore breaks EU law, I do think so. That would be entirely in the hands of the jurisdiction, which is relatively strong here. Which is to say, they generally don't need to give too much of a fuck about the effects of their doing. They just look at the laws, look at the facts and then make rulings out of those.
That's not the case, as far as I understand it; the GDPR protects people in the EU, not EU citizens wherever they are.
https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/gdpr-does-apply-eu-citizens-g...