Those laws protect against commercial exploitation, but not against endeavours of law enforcement or intelligence services. "Vorratsdatenspeicherung" (data retention) law just took effect. In fact the BND doesn't care about the law at all. Fear driven neo-con politics are en vogue as everywhere else. I think the main difference is the civil opposition which is probably a tad more vocal and active than in non-EU or soon to be non-EU countries.

If customers are paying a premium why would Amazon drop the region? Were the privacy laws too complex for them?

I think he means "dropped" as in "the rapper dropped his mixtape today", not as in "the service provider dropped their service due to lack of profitability".

Well that's confusing :) Given your example is out of context and counter-example is perfectly in context.

Yes, because I agreed with you that it was perhaps a poor time for a colloquial usage of "dropped" considering that, in the context, it was fairly likely to be interpreted as my counter-example, or your initial interpretation.

I'd like to think my wording was completely unambiguous to make up for any context-switching your brain might have tried to pull on you, and if not I apologize.

Sidenote, this is an example of a contronym, a word that means one thing and the opposite.

"dropped" in this case = "added" or "dropped into place"

Think "drop a pin" like in Google maps parlance. To "drop something" is to release something. In that context it's really American hip-hop slang. Although its used widely by the music press when discussing a new release from any type of artist.

A band or artist might be "getting ready to drop something new" - a new single, a new album, video etc.