> Do our legal systems diverge so much that US citizens completely distrust theirs to do anything but bankrupt them for minutiae whilst we remain certain they c

> Do our legal systems diverge so much that US citizens completely distrust theirs to do anything but bankrupt them for minutiae whilst we remain certain they can and will be proportionate? I think...maybe? It's a continuum, and a legal system with zero judicial discretion would either require impossibly detailed law or yield obviously unjust results. I don't think the model in the USA is strictly adversarial--like, it's not entirely that the regulators are supposed to punish you to the maximum extent of the law as written, and if that's unjust then blame the legislators. It's closer, though. This has advantages (less opportunity for selective enforcement) and disadvantages (increased complexity of law, greater opportunity for loopholes). > I'm somewhat uncomfortable with some of the global precedents myself. On the other hand I'm not sure how it is avoided in a world that is so globalised and so many internet services have essentially ignored EU privacy and data protection. So what's the alternative? Any large player has operations within the EU, making the extraterritorial reach unnecessary. For smaller players, I see lots of unexplored opportunity to regulate indirectly through ad networks, payment processors, etc.