This isn't, implicitly, true. The EU played this game very well and came out on top. Let me explain: The US companies like to off-shore their profits through so-called tax-haven countries, Ireland being chief amongst those[0].
In response to the tax-haven laws in the US of last year (or the year prior, I forget), many companies made their "official" european headquarters in Ireland, which is still under the EU.
So, even though they're "US companies", the companies impacted would be european entities, which are legally separate and bound to the EU jurisdictions.
Put succinctly: By the US companies trying to have their cake and eat it, too, they fell into a quagmire of having their "partners" bound by far stricter laws than exists in the US. Thus, the companies affected, aren't "US companies", in the legal sense of the word. :)
>I don't think it would be that much effort for facebook to stop tracking Belgium or German users.
On the flipside of that very same coin, <insert three-lettered agency here> claims that it is difficult to discern between who's an American citizens and who's not, so they just deal with it "honestly", afterwards (even though the DOJ has found them to be breaching the 4th numerous times).
I think we've reached a stage where compulsion, through punitive fines, is the only viable means to make these entities respect the boundaries that have been erected.
It might not be much effort to create the infrastructure to delimit their tracking (in both cases) but they have a much higher ROI for not doing so, currently, than actually doing so (if that makes sense).
This isn't, implicitly, true. The EU played this game very well and came out on top. Let me explain: The US companies like to off-shore their profits through so-called tax-haven countries, Ireland being chief amongst those[0].
In response to the tax-haven laws in the US of last year (or the year prior, I forget), many companies made their "official" european headquarters in Ireland, which is still under the EU.
So, even though they're "US companies", the companies impacted would be european entities, which are legally separate and bound to the EU jurisdictions.
Put succinctly: By the US companies trying to have their cake and eat it, too, they fell into a quagmire of having their "partners" bound by far stricter laws than exists in the US. Thus, the companies affected, aren't "US companies", in the legal sense of the word. :)
(Sorry for the long-winded response.)
[0] - https://www.quora.com/Why-have-Google-and-Facebook-chosen-Du...