4 ms·

I went to the site and sorted by fine - I needed to go to the bottom of second list to find a non US company ? By the time I get to pages that are mostly non US

I went to the site and sorted by fine - I needed to go to the bottom of second list to find a non US company ? By the time I get to pages that are mostly non US companies the fines are two orders of magnitude smaller and dropping fast - do you have any aggregate view to compare ? I would not be surprised at all that indeed most of the fines were towards US companies in total amount.

FranzFerdiNaN 1y ago
Its because American companies are much larger than most European companies in terms of revenue. And because the impact of their infringements are much larger due to the nature of their business. If Bumfuck LLC from Sweden with maybe a 1000 customers fucks up they arent impacting millions of users, unlike when Google or Meta does things.
oblio 1y ago
I saw TikTok at #3 and #5, Enel (Italian) at #15, Vodafone at #19 (British) and starting at around #21 the list is basically dominated by European companies. Speaking from personal experience, American companies, especially the big ones, tend to treat everyone else as "Americans that they don't know they're American yet" or alternatively "slightly dumb Americans". At least for one of them, yeah, they apply the legal laws, but the general decisions are taken in the US with little regard for local "non-impeding laws", I would call them. "Impeding laws" would be laws that would block the launch of something (for example they wouldn't attach an AR-15 to every product sold). "Non-impeding laws" would for example be, labor laws. They just assume that what works in the US sort of works everywhere else and deal with the consequences along the way.
- rafaelmn 1y ago
  I count TikTok as big tech non-EU so I automatically put it in to that bucket but you are right it is not a US company. Still fits the theme that EU is using GDPR to shake down big tech it does not own. I missed Enel (did not know about them) and yeah Vodafone was bottom page 2 first EU brand I recognized from the list, but OK middle of page 2 for non-EU. Again just a rough feeling from the list but I would speculate that over 50 percent of fines in total were towards US or non-EU based companies.
  - vampirical 1y ago
    Please re-read what you’ve written in these two comments with a critical eye. You’re speaking from a lack of knowledge without very much care and reaching incorrect conclusions that agree with your initial bias. When someone else does the work of helping nudge you towards reality you seem to be doing a poor job correcting. Sorry if this comes across as rude, it’s said with the kindest of intentions.
    - rafaelmn 1y ago
      So I did quick excel math - I took just the US companies from top 100, sumed them and then I summed everything else (the entire list, not just top 100) - including tiktok - and the ratio is almost 3 to one against US companies in total. In fact Meta alone is fined more than everyone else combined. What exactly am I missing ?
      - oblio 1y ago
        The fact that the EU just doesn't have big companies in the fields that are more likely to be abusive with customer data. It's a bit like the sweatshop argument. If your company wins out by using sweatshops, yeah, you're going to end up with the billion dollar argument. But if a certain market doesn't want stuff produced by sweatshops, and they decide to dis-incentivize it by tariffing it, that: a) makes sense from their point of view b) is moral from a global perspective Similar approach here.
        rafaelmn 1y ago
        Thats all a matter of perspective, not something I am willing to argue. EU has a history of making protectionist legislation under the guise of protecting its members, eg. the whole GMO story, and I can see how someone can make an argument here. If it is valid or not is up to you I guess. But saying that the fines are mostly towards EU members when over 2/3 is fined towards US companies is misrepresenting the data and the opposing viewpoint.
        deleted 1y ago
const_cast 1y ago
IME as an American, US companies play much more fast and loose with laws. Especially tech, which has "disrupt first, ask questions later" approach to ethics.

FranzFerdiNaN 1y ago

Its because American companies are much larger than most European companies in terms of revenue. And because the impact of their infringements are much larger due to the nature of their business. If Bumfuck LLC from Sweden with maybe a 1000 customers fucks up they arent impacting millions of users, unlike when Google or Meta does things.

oblio 1y ago

I saw TikTok at #3 and #5, Enel (Italian) at #15, Vodafone at #19 (British) and starting at around #21 the list is basically dominated by European companies. Speaking from personal experience, American companies, especially the big ones, tend to treat everyone else as "Americans that they don't know they're American yet" or alternatively "slightly dumb Americans". At least for one of them, yeah, they apply the legal laws, but the general decisions are taken in the US with little regard for local "non-impeding laws", I would call them. "Impeding laws" would be laws that would block the launch of something (for example they wouldn't attach an AR-15 to every product sold). "Non-impeding laws" would for example be, labor laws. They just assume that what works in the US sort of works everywhere else and deal with the consequences along the way.

rafaelmn 1y ago
I count TikTok as big tech non-EU so I automatically put it in to that bucket but you are right it is not a US company. Still fits the theme that EU is using GDPR to shake down big tech it does not own. I missed Enel (did not know about them) and yeah Vodafone was bottom page 2 first EU brand I recognized from the list, but OK middle of page 2 for non-EU. Again just a rough feeling from the list but I would speculate that over 50 percent of fines in total were towards US or non-EU based companies.
- vampirical 1y ago
  Please re-read what you’ve written in these two comments with a critical eye. You’re speaking from a lack of knowledge without very much care and reaching incorrect conclusions that agree with your initial bias. When someone else does the work of helping nudge you towards reality you seem to be doing a poor job correcting. Sorry if this comes across as rude, it’s said with the kindest of intentions.
  - rafaelmn 1y ago
    So I did quick excel math - I took just the US companies from top 100, sumed them and then I summed everything else (the entire list, not just top 100) - including tiktok - and the ratio is almost 3 to one against US companies in total. In fact Meta alone is fined more than everyone else combined. What exactly am I missing ?
    - oblio 1y ago
      The fact that the EU just doesn't have big companies in the fields that are more likely to be abusive with customer data. It's a bit like the sweatshop argument. If your company wins out by using sweatshops, yeah, you're going to end up with the billion dollar argument. But if a certain market doesn't want stuff produced by sweatshops, and they decide to dis-incentivize it by tariffing it, that: a) makes sense from their point of view b) is moral from a global perspective Similar approach here.
      - rafaelmn 1y ago
        Thats all a matter of perspective, not something I am willing to argue. EU has a history of making protectionist legislation under the guise of protecting its members, eg. the whole GMO story, and I can see how someone can make an argument here. If it is valid or not is up to you I guess. But saying that the fines are mostly towards EU members when over 2/3 is fined towards US companies is misrepresenting the data and the opposing viewpoint.
        deleted 1y ago

const_cast 1y ago

IME as an American, US companies play much more fast and loose with laws. Especially tech, which has "disrupt first, ask questions later" approach to ethics.