Facebook Threatens to Shoot Itself in the Foot

Over the summer, the Court of Justice of the European Union struck down a longstanding data-sharing framework known as the Privacy Shield, which allowed companies operating in the U.S. and European Union to transfer user data within those regions. Furthermore, U.S. data protections are not nearly as stringent as European requirements imposed by the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). Facebook (NASDAQ: FB) has long stored data on its European users in data centers located within the U.S., and the Irish Data Protection Commission (DPC) has ordered the social networking conglomerate to stop sending data to the U.S. Facebook is rather upset about the prospect, and is now threatening to shoot itself in the foot by pulling out of Europe altogether.