[saas_co_de]

It is good that they are protecting their citizens from exploitation by US companies but this is not uncommon that it is easier to regulate a large company that is not your constituent.

The EU has not done so well on regulating diesel autos for instance but the US is knocking that one of the park.

[dvfjsdhgfv]

Your comparison is not correct. The practices of FB are not universally considered bad, many people are OK with them. The diesel scandal was a deliberate scheme to cheat everybody - you can't find anyone who considers what they did as good. And the Germans finally started arresting people, too - although the USA gave a good example.

[tripzilch]

> The practices of FB are not universally considered bad, many people are OK with them

Really. Please point me at these people.

People that simply "don't care, yolo" do not count. People that have a stake in this because they have an interest in the tech business and fear that any decisions in this matter might negatively impact their business, also do not count (because a very specific yet vocal slice of the tech sector is hardly representative of what is "universally" considered right or wrong).

If you think that's too restrictive, and those are the only two groups you can point at, that's okay. I don't really believe those two groups (ignorance and business interest) should be considered representative of what is universally considered right or wrong. If you believe otherwise we'll have to agree to have a different view on ethics (which is a bit of a long discussion I'm not up for right now).

Everybody else I hear about this (I said "almost everybody" at first, but I can't think of anyone), DOES think it's bad, but admit that "what can you do, if everyone uses it" (hence the need for EU regulations!!) and because "it's really useful to keep in touch with long-distance friends and family, also to plan events etc", the latter being a reasonable point except there's nothing unique about FB's capability providing this service, and it's really easy enough to do it without violating privacy, if it weren't for FB dominating the social network sphere and forcing the privacy violations on the general public.

[petre]

The Germans are treating VW just like the US was treating the bankers responsible for the 2007 subprime mortgage crisis: with a pat on the back.