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Comment by noslenwerdna | Hacker News Reader

Doesn't this mean any US company with data on EU users is technically in violation?

And?

Without a footprint in the EU, there is no legal action the EU can take against a foreign organization. Sure, the EU might ban your organization from operating legally in their markets, but again, there is no legal recourse for the EU. You might as well circumvent the ban too.

I'd wager there are many tech companies with offices in the EU that have data on EU citizens.

What if one visits EU? Will you get in trouble at the airport?

I’m thinking for startups, maybe default to servers in EU. Until you get big enough where you can handle complex geographical distributed infrastructure.

They could be (and probably are), but remember, this case is about a EU company (Meta Platforms Ireland Limited) breaking EU law and subsequently being punished for that, with fines proportional to the revenue of the parent company (a US company).

Are you arguing that selective enforcement of the law is a good thing? Why just this one company? Google and many other large companies are also apparently in violation.

No. Were do you think I did that? I'm just saying this is not the case of a U.S company being fined for breaking EU law (which many seem to think) but a EU company breaking EU law.

And further that there are probably a lot of GDPR violations going on in the U.S but those are obviously harder to actually enforce (GDPR enforcement is already a big issue _within_ the union).

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