"Due to 27 different regulations in the EU alone (and more in other non-EU-countries), the administrative burden for international e-commerce is huge. Other than packaging regulations in many countries, WEEE regulations do typically not have any minimum thresholds or exceptions for SMEs. Therefore, WEEE registration and recycling fees are required in every country (separately – even within the EU) when shipping internationally. This also goes for startups and small stores which have just started selling electronics in Europe. (The laws even apply before the first sale is made.)"
When GDPR went into effect, our company had ~5 clients in the EU (out of thousands). It was cheaper to drop those 5 clients than attempt to even read and comply with the regulation. We weren’t even doing anything nefarious, it just wasn’t worth our time to spend any brainpower thinking about it.
Haven't heard of the 1995 data regulation I suppose then, or that it's mostly common sense to tell what you do with other people's personal information, but sure, drop out of the entire market over this.
I think the parent commenter was complaining about things that aren't EU-wide. This was and you're saying it's still not good enough
Er, I like GDPR, and it was EU-wide, but each member still would have to write its own framework into its legal system to implement GDPR as it saw fit. Those frameworks are all different in their detail.
E.g. Germany has the BDSG, and the UK has (had?) the DPA.
I was waiting over one year for shipping to Czech Republic. Finally I solved it by buying over Germany with service that created virtual address there and reshipped to Czech Republic.
Edit: I understand that for business especially non-european EU rules must be complicated. But seems to me that for the EU customer it works great.
"Due to 27 different regulations in the EU alone (and more in other non-EU-countries), the administrative burden for international e-commerce is huge. Other than packaging regulations in many countries, WEEE regulations do typically not have any minimum thresholds or exceptions for SMEs. Therefore, WEEE registration and recycling fees are required in every country (separately – even within the EU) when shipping internationally. This also goes for startups and small stores which have just started selling electronics in Europe. (The laws even apply before the first sale is made.)"
https://www.ecosistant.eu/en/weee-directive/