> It makes no sense because there is no causal-link or rational basis, it's all irrational. I think you are mistaken here. Strong privacy laws in Germany are d

> It makes no sense because there is no causal-link or rational basis, it's all irrational. I think you are mistaken here. Strong privacy laws in Germany are decades older than Facebook et al., and to some degree have constitutional level. Similar for other EU countries before the europization of the variants of national law (which actually weakened German privacy and consumer protection law in some minor details). Big Ad companies have a core business model that is simply incompatible with the values implemented here. That is the whole secret of why there are so few Big Ad companies founded in the EU. Calling that anticompetitive is mistaking cause and effect.