[mseebach]

> Wait until GDPR is in place in May and German and other EU courts will rule FB to death.

If indeed GDPR will enable those courts to "rule FB to death", and not, as repeatedly promised, be entirely reasonable to comply with, including for Facebook, obviously Facebook will shut down in Europe (and so will a good number of other popular services), and tell their millions of former users why. Here's a quick, free lesson in politics: that will not end well for the GDPR.

[loup-vaillant]

If they do this, traditional TV will likely bang our heads over how deceptive these companies are. They will point out the fine prints in the EULA with the most outraged tone possible. They will conflate the issue with US spying on everyone ("NSA" and "Snowden" will be uttered repeatedly).

Because doing so is in the interest of EU corporate powers: let's drive away, or at least hinder, US companies on our soil, so we can develop our own. Even if the initial intent was not to put up a trade barrier, it will be used as such. Not that would be a bad thing: from what I have heard, the GDPR seems fine, as well as quite defensible.

[mseebach]

> the GDPR seems fine, as well as quite defensible.

So, that's the thing. Either, it's fine and defensible, and the Facebooks of the world will just comply, and so won't be a trade barrier, or it's not. It can't be both.

And also, don't wish for a "trade barrier" for this purpose, import substitution has been demonstrated over and over again to be really just awful policy.

[loup-vaillant]

I was hypothesising Facebook being unreasonable. And their business model could very well be incompatible with GDPR. They're an ad company that feeds on personal data. I'm not sure they can get the informed consent of most of their users for this.

Simply put, GDPR could be reasonable and sue Facebook to death (at least within its borders).

[madez]

Facebook can be compliant with the GDPR and be profitable. They must change, however.

[mseebach]

But that would not be a politically acceptable outcome. There will be so unbelievably many free votes for the "Bring Facebook back" party that they will barely need to campaign.

Also, by the way, this won't bring about the development of "our own" alternatives. Being European doesn't confer any particular skills required to build a GDPR-compatible Facebook, if Facebook itself can't even build it themselves.

[loup-vaillant]

> There will be so unbelievably many free votes for the "Bring Facebook back" party that they will barely need to campaign.

Hence my predicting that traditional media would gang up against Facebook. It wouldn't be the first time there's a disconnect between television and the people. (Who's right is a separate issue.)

[tripzilch]

> And also, don't wish for a "trade barrier" for this purpose, import substitution has been demonstrated over and over again to be really just awful policy.

That's a very different kind of "trade barrier" than is being discussed here.

The barrier being thrown up here is in fact not so much about trade but about privacy values. I see that as a very different thing, if a business wants to draw the line for privacy ethics elsewhere, but that line happens to be subject to regulations which reflect our values, then that is indeed a barrier, but I don't see much wrong with it. Unless you want to argue that US values on privacy are somehow more right than the ones we decide on in the EU.

[rmc]

If FB gives up on the EU market, then they've opened a massive weak spot for themselves. Social networks benefit from the more connections between people.

If FB leave the EU, then some EU company can copy the software (we know what kind of features people want), and this company will be able to operate in EU and USA, but FB will not be able to operate in EU, giving this EU company a massive benefit and safe harbor.