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>but forcing companies to use time and energy on privacy is super positive.

Until you find out that for some reason your country/region has far fewer strong internet companies than other regions of the world. Then you realize that you effectively shot your own economy in the foot.

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Can you elaborate?

Europe is large and educated. The EU has 50% more population than the US and the EU is just as highly educated and almost as rich. Yet how much everyday software do you use that's from the EU compared to the US?

Something has kept EU companies down. I assume that it's the combination of the various regulations we have in the EU that make it less welcoming of an environment to run an online business. GDPR is just one additional brick in that wall.

These companies grew up with local data protection laws. UK's Data Protection Act 2018 implemented GDPR, repealing the DPA of 1998, which repealed the DPA of 1984.

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