I did a lot of GDPR work at several <insert FAANG here> companies. It was absolutely taken seriously and lawyers were involved all the time. The reason for all

I did a lot of GDPR work at several <insert FAANG here> companies. It was absolutely taken seriously and lawyers were involved all the time. The reason for all these fines is 2-fold: 1. A lot of the fines come from edge cases that are literally unclear in the law. Eg Facebook‘s opt out for advertising fines. You can disagree with fb’s decision but teams of lawyers couldn’t answer this question except in court. I think American and European jurisprudence aware also pretty different so someone sitting in California making business decisions might not understand the ramifications in Europe. 2. A lot of the thorny privacy bits can be bypassed if you update the TOS to mention it (or so they think). I’ve seen that happen a few times during my tenure. That doesn’t excuse the choice of these companies to make these choices, but my point was to say that companies take it seriously but lawyers don’t always agree on how laws work except in court.