Re:Google Emerges as Early Winner from Europe’s New Data Pri...
by phicoh on Thursday May 31, 2018 @10:51AM
(#17196728)
Maybe it comes as a surprise, but there are places where if you generate industrial waste (even as a relatively small company) you have to be able to demonstrate that you get rid it in a responsible way. And if somebody complains with a local government that you are dumping waste in a particular way, they will send somebody over to investigate.
Note that the European consumer protection laws already allow consumers to sue in their own country. So if you do business in all EU country, you can be sued in lots of places.
Maybe if you are continuously worried about regulators, then it is better to not start a business. In the real world, regulators are busy enough. Regulators are not going to bother random companies in other countries just for the fun of it.
Nobody disagrees with GDPR's intent. The qualm is with its administrative approach. If someone said "write a bailout for lawyers and lobbyists," it would look like GDPR.
Taking your analogy, a good law would assess a fine for dumping. A bad law would (a) require continuous certification that one is not dumping and (b) allow anyone to prompt an expensive inspection (done via writing letter responses to a regulator, not on-site inspection by an expert) by reporting you to one of twenty-eight national regulators, each of which have jurisdiction over you.
The former imposes a fixed costs, regardless of compliance. That benefits incumbents. The latter promotes venue shopping, a further advantage to size and incumbency.