Make me realize that there are still people who do not understand how the Internet works. There are no boarders on the Internet. German people are under no obligation whatsoever to use "a US portal".
Facebook can chose not to operate and offer services to German customers within Germany if it doesn't like the laws of that country.
Every country has the right to define its own laws that (in general) are there to protect its citizens. Companies who operate in a country are bound by those laws, whether they like them or not.
Privacy is very important to Germans. They have learnt from experience that it is very dangerous to centralize identifying information within the hands of a single ruling entity.
I am not aware if that gives Germany any power over them or not, but if Germany can prove that the same laws they are referencing (and the data protection laws are the same across the EU, so I am making a big assumption here that it is the case) they could make Facebook follow the EU laws.
Not really, it is Irish law that applies.
the data protection laws are the same across the EU, so I am making a big assumption here that it is the case
Yes and no. EU Directives set out a lot details (and usually minimum levels) for various things, but countries implement & transpose them into national law (i.e. actual law) themselves and there can be differences. Remember not all countries in EU speak same language, have same legal systems (civil law vs. common law) or use the same currency so there will be some some superficial differences. Sometimes countries get a opt-out of certain EU directives. Sometimes countries will go above and beyond the EU directives. (e.g. in UK it's possible to opt out of the 48 hr maximum working week, whereas France has no opt out and sets the maximum working week at 35 hrs.) Broadly speaking EU law will be the same across the EU.
However the next EU Data Protection / Privacy directive will allow one country to act against a company/person if they are active in that country, rather than it having to be based on where that company's headquarters are.
Never mind that this is very close to Godwining the discussion: There is a world and then some of difference to telling a private company your real name and being physically forced to detail the ethnicity of your entire family to the government.
It's also rampant survivor-bias (although the name of that bias is awfully inappropriate in this context). Plenty of countries did (and still do) plenty of registration of citizen's private data without subsequently mass murdering them.
Also, Facebook has a data center in Finland, which is under EU-jurisdiction. Germany has a lot of say internally in EU, so Facebook could very quickly be subject to such laws - as they should!
Dublin, Ireland; Hamburg, Germany; London, UK; Madrid, Spain; Milan, Italy; Paris, France; Stockholm, Sweden
"Just?" That's their whole business. If they're selling ads in a country, then they're "doing business" in that country.
Nations all over the world block content that violates their laws... from the Tiananmen Square Wikipedia page being blocked by China to megaupload.com being blocked by the U.S.
Certainly Germany cannot prevent you from running a server in India and publishing to Indians, but they certainly can prevent you from broadcasting to Germans, and if you want to do so, you have to play by their laws.