[Aerroon]

>or we will end up with separate products for the US and the EU.

I thought this was the goal the EU was working towards. There was even that policy recommendation for building a firewall similar to the Chinese one. It didn't amount to much, but we seem to be going down a path like that.

Why would the US listen to the EU on this topic though? EU countries are trying to use privacy as a way to limit the reach of these US companies, but we don't have anything comparable to replace them with. Those US news sites that blocked EU visitors? They're still blocked and you can't really blame them - they don't make much money from advertising to European users, so why take the risk and cost of implementing GDPR? I understand it, but parts of the internet are still unavailable to me. And I don't seem to have any more privacy anyway.

Data protection is good, but at this point I find it difficult to believe that this is the actual goal of EU politicians.

[nmehner]

Read up on Schrems II. This policy is actually based on a court's decision not on a decision of politicians. Politicians actually tried to save data transfer with the "Privacy Shield".

"The CJEU ruled that the Privacy Shield does not provide adequate protection, and invalidated the agreement. The court also ruled that European data protection authorities must stop transfers of personal data made under the standard contractual clauses by companies, like Facebook, subject to overbroad surveillance. This decision has significant implications for U.S. Companies and for the U.S. Congress because it calls into question the adequacy of privacy protection in the United States."

from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Max_Schrems

[JAlexoid]

That's unfair assessment.

While I find it hard to believe that European countries are that much more privacy focused... the reason for the divide is that European countries, in or outside of EU, have stricter rules on user data... and much more recourse for users.

Having those rules creates an advantage for any company that doesn't operate by those rules while serving people located in the countries covered by those rules. The goal was never to "limit the reach of US companies", but to prevent uneven playing field.(EU was specifically created to keep markets competitive)

What's worse is that US government, that is legally barred from snooping on people in US, says that data of people not physically present on US soil is fair game to do as they wish.