For example ACA 2012 (Obamacare) applies the most onerous terms on companies greater than 50, but not a lot of 100 person companies split into two groups of 50 to dodge it.
I think privacy is indeed along a spectrum and not binary. I certainly think that EU citizens are more concerned with Facebook and the vast trove of data they have and political irresponsibility with it than with GarethsFirstApp in the Android store handling user data well.