> Why would European regulators even care about Facebook? It's a completely voluntary service and anyone's free to create an alternative. It's non-essential. I

> Why would European regulators even care about Facebook? It's a completely voluntary service and anyone's free to create an alternative. It's non-essential. Is it really too much to ask for a foreign company to play by the rules and the values of the country it is doing the business in? I know many foreign car manufacturers adjust their cars according to U.S. laws before exporting? Couldn't one use the same argument and say: Driving a foreign car is completely voluntary? Who cares if it does not include all the safety features demanded by U.S. law? Just use a different car instead. I know, this issue is debatable. But I fail to see the difference to other industries. > If a huge U.S. retailer muscled into the EU markets and started driving mom-and-pop retailers and smaller chains out of business, I can see where the regulators would go nuts and try to stop them. It's a clash of U.S. capitalism versus European style capitalism and if they don't like the raw knock-down-drag-out American approach, it's understandable. Call me old-fashioned, but I remember a time where the goal of regulation was to create competition and not protectionism. > As jakozaur says, why not promote and encourage domestic competition? A great way of promoting domestic competition would be to oblige facebook to create an open API that would enable other social networks to connect to Facebook and vice versa. This way the social network with the best features (for example privacy protection of their users) would win and not the one enjoying the advantages of having a monopoly (which includes the user lock-in).