> GDPR is not against the ad business

Yet somehow, I doubt that GDPR would exist if Google and Facebook were German companies, rather than American ones.

Is that relevant in any way?

And Germans are more privacy aware than Americans, for obvious historical reasons.

There's nothing inherently wrong with storing user data or using targeted advertising as long as it's not abused. Instead of outlawing only cases of abuse like any sensible law would do, the EU just chooses to throw the baby out with the bathwater because it's not their baby.

No, data can be sold or leaked and abused at any point in time, it doesn't matter that it doesn't happen right now.

People that blame Cambridge Analytica are missing the point, which is that Facebook is a threat to everything we know just by existing.

The EU tried that. Google and friends gave a shit. Then result was creating a regulation more painful to them. These companies apply their US based understanding of right and wrong to the globe. You see China, EU and Russia are reacting and applying their local rules. With different methods, but they do.

They would never be German companies. We (Germans) would have regulated them bancrupt long time ago :).

You are right. GDPR is a very German thing. We essentially have a two digit party (the greens) which rose because of the rejection of a general census (and nuclear energy). In Europe we are also not alone with that (see pirate party).

Oh and regards sensibility: The EU tried that. Google and friends gave a shit. Then result was creating a regulation more painful to them. These companies apply their US based understanding of right and wrong to the globe. You see China, EU and Russia are reacting and applying their local rules. With different methods, but they do.