U.S. Websites Go Dark in Europe

[Mackin USA]

U.S. Websites Go Dark in Europe as GDPR Data Rules Kick In

EXAMPLE
Tronc Inc. publisher of the Los Angeles Times, New York Daily News and other U.S. newspapers, was among those that blocked readers in the European Union from accessing sites, as they scrambled to comply with the sweeping regulation.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/u-s-websites-go-dark-in-europe-as-gdpr-data-rules-kick-in-1527242038

[aaron]

Is this likely to create stronger internal competitors who use their outsized domestic profits to compete internationally (a sort of mirror image of China coming from the opposite direction)? Does that model work when it is across a collection of countries with diverse cultures, languages, etc. just because they have a common currency and share some laws? Or is it likely to set the EU back further in terms of competing against the big US tech companies?

If Google & Facebook went away, would Europe create strong domestic competitors for them, or would they have lower web usage?

How aggressive do publishers get with the user blocking before Google or Facebook start folding in the poor usage data to then lower the rankings / distribution of publishers?