Comment by jimnotgym
3 years ago
Isn't this an opportunity for EU startups? By choosing to enforce the law on US companies that EU companies are already generally very compliant with, surely the EU has levelled the playing field for EU companies?
3 years ago
Isn't this an opportunity for EU startups? By choosing to enforce the law on US companies that EU companies are already generally very compliant with, surely the EU has levelled the playing field for EU companies?
It is. Most startups in the EU have to use more and more businesses in the EU. The selection is little, so way more changes to succeed if your EU based and serve both markets.
I run Simple Analytics [1], which is a privacy-first analytics business from the Netherlands. I see a lot of business from the EU just because we are from the EU as well.
[1] https://simpleanalytics.com/?ref=hn
Frankly, as a EU company (based in Germany no less) I'm steering clear of any US SaaS whenever possible. Even if they operate in the EU they're usually a legal headache because privacy compliance is added as an afterthought and they'll often carelessly transfer data to US servers based on assumptions that should have been abandoned when Privacy Shield was torn down in the courts.
Out of the big cloud providers only Azure feels even remotely safe to use (if only because of the privacy reputation of Google and Amazon).
Wait, why would Microsoft have a better reputation ?
Because (NSA aside), they have been caught less often transferring private information and "stolen" company secrets to third parties ?
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I can already see the taglines: "ConsentCo, tracking that's legal in the EU, unlike Google Analytics"
A little advantage for EU analytics startups, disadvantage for all other EU startups and SMBs who have less options for figuring out what users like about their website and offerings.
Assuming any of that actually helps to grow revenue, or that it is the only way to find out what your users want. Plus, GDPR isn't making tracking illegal in general, it is just heavily regulating it. If it was just properly enforced, the internet would be a much nicer place...
Side note, I'm slowly getting tired of people ignoring regulations and compliance simply out of laziness.
So due to this legislations it is more costly/less profitable for a company to have a European customer compared to US customer. Things like GDPR/lawsuits/bad PR etc. doesn't come for free for companies. So if some startup has more ratio of European users it is at a disadvantage.
GDPR is rarely enforced, we are still In a transition phase and many who start out choose to just ignore it to a degree.
I don't see how it's more costly or less profitable. Judging by the amount of lawsuits per capita I think it's way more likely to get sued in the US than Europe. And guess what's more expensive or complicated for a European company?