[dragonwriter]

> It runs afoul of about a dozen european rights to privacy, imagery and consent laws

The EU is welcome to try to enforce its local laws on the US operations of a US business open only to US users, but I don’t think its going to have much success.

[ohdeargodno]

It's cute that the Americans think they're some special, unrestricted by law type of citizens: they're not.

https://www.edpb.europa.eu/system/files/2024-10/edpb_2024041...

That boat already sailed and it already happened. "US only operations" does not matter (which is already bullshit, as Tea does not verify that users are US ones, they merely disabled downloading in the play/app store): posting pictures of European citizens runs afoul of European laws. Sure, they can't come and arrest you on US soil. Just don't travel too much.

[Quarrel]

While the GDPR has extraterritoriality, you are over-reaching here.

Tea can collect and use photos of EU citizens, if it collected them in the USA, with (all other things being equal) no fear of GDPR violations.

So, yes Facebook can't collect photos of EU citizens, then process and do "stuff" with them in the USA, without violating GDPR, because that'd be the easiest out ever for multinational tech companies.

It is the location of the subject of the personal data collection that matters, not their citizenship.

[laughing_man]

Facebook can't do it because Facebook has a legal presence in Europe and does business with European advertisers and financial companies. If a business doesn't have, and doesn't want, that presence it can ignore GDPR.

[Quarrel]

No. Tea can have no legal presence in the EU, but if it collects data from people in the EU at the time of collection, then it is caught be GDPR. It would be offering services to people in the EU in this case, and so has to deal with their laws, including privacy and consumer protections.

Steam tried this stuff on in Australia too, saying it had no presence there, but still sold games to Australians. In particular, they didn't want to honour Australia's consumer rights laws regarding refunds. They fought hard in the courts and lost, and it improved steam for almost everyone.

Big tech try on these jurisdiction arguments all the time, but they've repeatedly failed where you are selling goods to, or providing services to, people in those jurisdictions. The US does the same thing. If you sell or provide services to someone in XX state, you need to abide by the consumer laws (and maybe privacy if it is a state like CA) of that state.

This is one of the reasons paypal and Escrow.com have had a competitive advantage. It is hard getting money transmission / escrow licenses in all 50 states like they do. There are many such examples.

[laughing_man]

Oh, it may be in violation of the GDPR, but European law doesn't have jurisdiction in the US. It literally doesn't matter unless they don't want to give up their European paid subscriptions.

Valve did not want to give up its Australian income stream, which is why it went to court.

[fc417fc802]

Unrestricted by foreign law, yes. Would you be in favor of having US law enforced against you? It bewilders me why anyone would want more of this nonsense in the world instead of less.

The document you linked is interesting but I'm skeptical that you actually read it. It effectively says that in practice there's no hope of enforcing actions against entities that are purely in the US unless their behavior has run afoul of state or federal policy.

It does note that if concrete damages are recognized by the court that there is a decent chance US courts will cooperate to enforce the judgment. But the vast majority of GDPR enforcement is punitive as opposed to compensatory so it's not particularly relevant.

I'm also not clear why you think traveling would matter. DPA penalties are administrative in nature, not criminal. They are also likely to be levied against corporations as opposed to individuals. My guess is that the extremely unlikely worst case is your entry or visa application getting denied.

[ohdeargodno]

US law is _already_ enforced upon me. Banks regularly ask if you are a US citizen, or subject to the IRS in any way. The US affirms at every step the extraterritoriality of its harmful laws and attempts to use their pathetic excuse of "free speech" to defend multimillion dollar companies evading taxes in my country while damaging democracy. The US imposes its definition of copyright to the world, destroying access to culture and knowledge to billions.

Needless to say, I am very happy about making the US eat shit.