[capableweb]

> It's companies being directly hampered by their connection to the US.

No, the companies are being hampered by not following local (EU) regulation, so they get fined because of it. Has nothing to do with where the company is from, it might as well have been Indian, Chinese or from South Africa, it has to follow the regulation in the places it does business.

[pfannkuchen]

I believe the point is that if the US government had policies to never use such data for anything (e.g. criminal investigations, intelligence agencies perhaps), then the EU would not be worried about the data being in the US. The US government’s behavior is why they are worried about it.