I'm from Germany and I'm currently writing a dissertation (similiar to PhD) on data protection law. My take on the situation:
1) Are the european data protection laws "perfect" or reasonable? No, they can't be, the most relevant directive is from the year 1995.
2) Do Google or Facebook comply with the European data protection standard? No way. Do they even try? No. There is something called the "Safe Harbor Directive" (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Safe_Harbor_Principles) which Facebook and Google have declared to uphold. However they "self-certify" and in reality it is more like a "scam". For example Facebook is boasting about a "TRUSTe" certificate, which is practically a joke.(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TRUSTe)
However the story about the 50,000€ fine is just for publicity. Google has lost cases in civil court against consumer protection agencies about their privacy policy, but to date there has never been a fine by a government agency. Furthermore just because the law says "up to 50,000" as a maximum sentence doesn't mean you could realistically go that high.
1) Are the european data protection laws "perfect" or reasonable? No, they can't be, the most relevant directive is from the year 1995.
2) Do Google or Facebook comply with the European data protection standard? No way. Do they even try? No. There is something called the "Safe Harbor Directive" (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Safe_Harbor_Principles) which Facebook and Google have declared to uphold. However they "self-certify" and in reality it is more like a "scam". For example Facebook is boasting about a "TRUSTe" certificate, which is practically a joke.(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TRUSTe)
However the story about the 50,000€ fine is just for publicity. Google has lost cases in civil court against consumer protection agencies about their privacy policy, but to date there has never been a fine by a government agency. Furthermore just because the law says "up to 50,000" as a maximum sentence doesn't mean you could realistically go that high.