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I think you're implying that the GDPR is a money-grabbing scheme that the poor, cash-strapped EU pulled to fill its coffers with much needed cash. The EU as a

I think you're implying that the GDPR is a money-grabbing scheme that the poor, cash-strapped EU pulled to fill its coffers with much needed cash. The EU as a whole is the world’s second largest economy. However, the GDPR is up for unique enforcement strategies and legal interpretations in the courts of 28 different EU countries. Having users intentionally set up a company to be subject to fines under such a broadly written law is a trivial matter. Picture this: A local government attorney simply looks for technical violations of GDPR according to their own country’s strict interpretation of it that even the corporation themselves couldn’t have envisioned. Then they simply have a government agent sign up for the site and take screenshots as proof of the “violation” that the specific country has invented. They put the matter in front of a patriotic local judge who is aware of how much his town could use a new park and is tired of reading about how rich US internet entrepreneurs are getting. Boom, instant millions - they might even name the town’s new park after the judge. The poor EU countries will use this to suck up as much revenue as they can from what to them are faceless US corporations. The larger ones will use this to give local competitors a leg up by fining international competitors to death. It’s a smart strategy I suppose, but as with most heavy-handed government attempts to control and exploit the free market, it is quite likely to backfire.

deleted 9y ago
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YeGoblynQueenne 9y ago
The final arbiter of EU law is the court at Strasbourg. US companies are free to take up the matter with the Court, if they don't like the way particular countries spin the GDPR. I assume next we'll be talking about Strasbourg judges pocketing a cut of the fines imposed on Facebook etc?
- TomMarius 9y ago
  Strasbourg court does not override local highest courts, they have different kind of work to do - they override laws that are against EU regulations. Strasbourg court is there to determine if an implementation of a regulation is in line and might overrule it (the law), but if it is in line, then they will not (and can not) help the company at all. And since GDPR is very broad, it's very easy to come up with absurdly strict laws that are perfectly in line with the regulation, and even the poorest EU governments have an extreme abundance of legal resources compared to even the biggest companies. Strasbourg court is not the highest court instance (that's the local highest/constitutional court), there is no such thing in the EU, the EU is not a state.
  - YeGoblynQueenne 9y ago
    The way it goes is that cases cannot be appealed directly to the ECJ, rather the local courts can refer questions of EU law to the ECJ at their discretion. That normally happens when a case has been appealed all the way to the highest national court. So for this little money-grabbing scheme we're discussing to work out, the higher courts of -some? all? many?- member states of the EU must all be in on it. This, in a region of the world with some of the lowest corrpution globally. I don't want to say the words "conspiracy theory" but that's where this whole discussion has been heading to, from the get go.
    - TomMarius 9y ago
      I'm not supporting this "conspiracy theory", I'm just saying that the Strasbourg court isn't an "ordinary" highest court like it is in other parts of the world or within local jurisdictions. If the local implementation is in line with the regulation (and as I said, GDPR is extremely broad and allows extremely strict implementations), the Strasbourg court will say that it's perfectly OK - there is no need for other countries to be in on it. They might feel like it's bad, but they can do nothing, their job is to judge whether it's against the regulation or not, nothing else. If they wish to change it, they have to go through the usual route of gaining support in EU commission and EU parliament - and that change will not be retroactive. What you're saying would be needed if the strict implementation was against the regulation - then it would require a change of the regulation and yes, that needs cooperation of other countries; but the regulation already is broad, there is no need to change it if someone wanted to make this "conspiracy theory" a reality. And lastly, we're speaking about money making schemes of the poorest or most indebted EU governments, you're talking about low corruption, but in these countries, it's the exact opposite - they have much higher corruption indexes than the average: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corruption_Perceptions_Index https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corruption_Perceptions_Index - see stats of e.g. Macedonia, Greece, Italy.
      - YeGoblynQueenne 9y ago
        Macedonia is not in the EU, and it will not be allowed in until it resolves its name dispute with Greece and sorts out its finances and political issues. So we're talking about malicious action by higher court judges in Italy and Greece, specifically and only in those two countries? Or are there more countries that have high enough corruption that their higher order judges might think to make a bit on the side by applying the GDPR too broadly? How many poor EU countries are we talking about here? And which ones exactly? Greece, Italy- who else?

deleted 9y ago

[deleted]

YeGoblynQueenne 9y ago

The final arbiter of EU law is the court at Strasbourg. US companies are free to take up the matter with the Court, if they don't like the way particular countries spin the GDPR. I assume next we'll be talking about Strasbourg judges pocketing a cut of the fines imposed on Facebook etc?

TomMarius 9y ago
Strasbourg court does not override local highest courts, they have different kind of work to do - they override laws that are against EU regulations. Strasbourg court is there to determine if an implementation of a regulation is in line and might overrule it (the law), but if it is in line, then they will not (and can not) help the company at all. And since GDPR is very broad, it's very easy to come up with absurdly strict laws that are perfectly in line with the regulation, and even the poorest EU governments have an extreme abundance of legal resources compared to even the biggest companies. Strasbourg court is not the highest court instance (that's the local highest/constitutional court), there is no such thing in the EU, the EU is not a state.
- YeGoblynQueenne 9y ago
  The way it goes is that cases cannot be appealed directly to the ECJ, rather the local courts can refer questions of EU law to the ECJ at their discretion. That normally happens when a case has been appealed all the way to the highest national court. So for this little money-grabbing scheme we're discussing to work out, the higher courts of -some? all? many?- member states of the EU must all be in on it. This, in a region of the world with some of the lowest corrpution globally. I don't want to say the words "conspiracy theory" but that's where this whole discussion has been heading to, from the get go.
  - TomMarius 9y ago
    I'm not supporting this "conspiracy theory", I'm just saying that the Strasbourg court isn't an "ordinary" highest court like it is in other parts of the world or within local jurisdictions. If the local implementation is in line with the regulation (and as I said, GDPR is extremely broad and allows extremely strict implementations), the Strasbourg court will say that it's perfectly OK - there is no need for other countries to be in on it. They might feel like it's bad, but they can do nothing, their job is to judge whether it's against the regulation or not, nothing else. If they wish to change it, they have to go through the usual route of gaining support in EU commission and EU parliament - and that change will not be retroactive. What you're saying would be needed if the strict implementation was against the regulation - then it would require a change of the regulation and yes, that needs cooperation of other countries; but the regulation already is broad, there is no need to change it if someone wanted to make this "conspiracy theory" a reality. And lastly, we're speaking about money making schemes of the poorest or most indebted EU governments, you're talking about low corruption, but in these countries, it's the exact opposite - they have much higher corruption indexes than the average: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corruption_Perceptions_Index https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corruption_Perceptions_Index - see stats of e.g. Macedonia, Greece, Italy.
    - YeGoblynQueenne 9y ago
      Macedonia is not in the EU, and it will not be allowed in until it resolves its name dispute with Greece and sorts out its finances and political issues. So we're talking about malicious action by higher court judges in Italy and Greece, specifically and only in those two countries? Or are there more countries that have high enough corruption that their higher order judges might think to make a bit on the side by applying the GDPR too broadly? How many poor EU countries are we talking about here? And which ones exactly? Greece, Italy- who else?