[hak8or]

If it applies or not us irrelevant, what only matters is to what degree is it able to be enforced (and in practice) against companies that have no assets under EU jurisdiction. From what I gather, it's very little, so most smaller companies simply don't care.

[gist]

> what only matters is to what degree is it able to be enforced (and in practice) against companies that have no assets under EU jurisdiction

This is exactly true. Now sure the nervous nellies will be all over what outlier things can happen as is typical. In a practical sense the EU does not have the resources to go after (other than perhaps a few test cases for publicity) anything but the juicy or most flagrant cases.

[nerbert]

Once the discussion on whether the EU can enforce laws over its territory is over, one can think about the content of GDPR and how its guidelines are good practices that your users will appreciate, even if GDPR doesn't apply to you.

[LatteLazy]

Careful. That's what they say about US laws, then your CFO gets arrested in Canada and extradited to the US...

[sabalaba]

Pretty sure that both instances you're talking about (Huawei/Megaupload) are perfect examples of parent's point --- the US is capable of enforcing laws outside of its territory, the EU is not.

[skywal_l]

It depends if you have business in the EU. If you do, the EU has power over you. Indeed if you don't, Inspecteur Clouseau will be swatting your home !

[ryanmcbride]

Yeah, which is why the top comment is talking specifically about companies with no assets in the EU.

[skywal_l]

I don't know about assets, but Huawei definitely has business in the EU.

[fnord123]

"both"? Sportingbet, betonsports...

[mike_d]

People sometimes ask "what backs the US dollar?" implying that nothing does.

The answer is the same as what extends US law to the entire world. 11 aircraft carriers.

[granzymes]

What extends US law to the entire world is actually access to the US banking system and consumer base.

[Silhouette]

Unless you think the US is going to go to war with its allies, its military power has little importance in this context. The US is a large, wealthy market for imports and a supplier of many products and services that it exports. It's a huge financial centre. Despite the unfortunate state of its government and public services by the standards of a modern democracy, it's still broadly aligned with other modern democratic nations in terms of values and culture, which means it's still a much safer partner to trade and cooperate with than you'd find in some other large parts of the world.

This makes playing nice with the US a diplomatically and economically sensible policy, up to a point. I suspect the US will find it encounters that point increasingly often, partly because the rest of the world is also changing and partly because Trump did so much damage to international relations and the US may never fully recover. The ongoing negotiations about global corporate taxation are a good if rather dull example.

[iso1631]

Or New Zealand police raid your house at the behest of the US department of justice

[andi999]

this could turn out mega-embarrassing for NZ.