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Comment by johannes1234321 | Hacker News Reader

EU has no legislative powers outside EU.

Doesn't need to: You want into the EU market? EU demands this for the whole world. The EU can set any requirement it wants for market access. Such is the power of governments. And since someone will state that then other countries can do the same: Correct. And then companies will have to decide if the market in question is big enough to play by those rules.

No, the EU cannot dictate what companies do in other countries. They can only require them to meet standards for services and products that are sold in the EU (or maybe if the companies are headquartered in EU).

You're being really obtuse, aren't you. The EU can say "If you do not implement that functionality on all iPhones world-wide, then you are not allowed to sell any iPhone at all in the EU".

I mean, of course they can say it, but it would lead to a legal and trade agreement shit show.

Didn't eu/uk do exactly this by blocking an acquisition of an us company by another us company and the company listened?

Which one?

Adobe / Figma, and Amazon / iRobot.

And to the point of the discussion, there are no "limits" to what jurisdiction governments have. Governments--the United States especially but many others--does it all the time, especially as concerns financial matters. Many countries have declared that they have jurisdiction over crimes against humanity committed any time, anywhere, by anyone. China has penalized American companies for activities involving Americans in America.

However the EU probably has self-imposed limits (or imposed by the member states) and as a practical matter only large or powerful states can get away with it.

Mergers are a different thing, though. In this case, it also impacts the EU - and you can't just say we won't merge in the EU but will merge in the US, doesn't make sense.

A more analogues example would be e.g. if the EU would have said "Hey Adobe, if you launch this feature in the US, you can't do business in the EU".

> China has penalized American companies for activities involving Americans in America.

What are you referring to?

> Many countries have declared that they have jurisdiction over crimes against humanity committed any time, anywhere, by anyone.

This is a whole different topic, stop moving the goal posts.

China has fined companies for referring to Taiwan as a "country" on websites in English, directed towards Americans, for instance.

Apart from financial crimes the US imposes US law on foreign companies all the time--e.g. companies that do business with embargoed countries.

Also the US considers things like "a transaction was conducted in dollars" as a hook for US jurisdiction.

mergers are different thing as the outcome, but the mechanism is the same> two companies based in US could not merge because EU said so. The fact that the outcome of the merge vs outcome of some implemented features are different are just details that are not relevant for this discussion. EU absolutely can impose it's will on foreign companies and if those want to be present in EU market, they'll follow the rules

They can. Every country can. And they do in other cases - USA is perfectly Ok to sanction Chinese/UAE bank for doing business with Russian military. If it's ok to it with sanctions - why it's not ok to do it for market access? Yes, this could create situation where things EU requires worldwide are in direct conflict with other countries but it's rather unlikely to happen.

> EU can set any requirement it wants for market access

One, as long as it’s a land with the rule of law, it can’t. Two, this would constitute starting a trade war over…browser engines. Good luck getting people who depend on popular votes to back you up on that.

> Two, this would constitute starting a trade war over…browser engines. Good luck getting people who depend on popular votes to back you up on that.

It's so insane you'd be forgiven for forgetting that it already happened (with bipartisan political support): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._Microsoft_Cor....

Nor do the US, but most legal impositions (no accounts under 13 years, dmca, etc) get replicated around the world because services want to work in the US market.

(Also, guess what happens if you copy Hollywood movies a bit too much? Jurisdiction goes out of the window... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kim_Dotcom#High_Court )

Oh, but you know they would love that.

I kind of see the EU legislation similar to California. After CA passes laws, eventually, the other states do as well. I'd imagine that the EU hopes that their legislation will influence others at some point too.

What CA laws do the other (presumably most or all) states pass?

Some CA laws only have an effect outside California because the state has so many people (with money). So if you are designing a physical product to sell, it is cheaper to just make one that complies with California.

Exactly, with automobiles being the most obvious. At one point, if you bought a car outside of CA, you might have needed to make physical modifications to it before it could be registered in CA with the catalytic converter being an example that jumps to mind. Eventually, all of the other states required them as well, and the auto manufacturers just made all of there cars compatible with the CA reqs anyways.

There are non-physical product laws as well. CA was a leader on medicinal cannabis, minimum wage, etc

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