I’m aware of enforcementtracker.com which is used to show that some cases are cherry picked for enforcement. 2000 cases is an embarrassment. I would love to see an “unenforcement·com” service where we can all publish our reports that get irrationally dismissed or mothballed. I’ve filed reports on dozens of #GDPR violations over the years and not a single act of enforcement resulted. One report was dismissed instantly by a 1st tier office worker on bogus rationale.

To worsen matters and exacerbate the problem, some member state’s DPAs operate in a non-transparent fashion so your report is concealed even from yourself and you get zero progress information or interaction. You only get notified in the end if an enforcement action was taken. They’ve never contacted me to provide more info on any of my reports either, which suggests no slight amount progress either.

How do Austrian court proceedings affect what is happening in other countries?
Afaik the only court that would directly affect the legal situation of other countries ist the ECJ.

That’s beyond me. I recall reading about that decision that came out of some high court in Austria and the report said that it set a precedence for the whole EU.

What I’ve seen in the US is that any lawyer can use any other case as a precedent for the court to consider even if the case happened in a different state, but there are varying degrees of utility. The lower the court, the less weight the result carries. And when a result from a different jurisdiction is used, it still has merit but less so than cases in the same jurisdiction.

I know in Europe it’s the same as far as highness of a court & proportional weight. The lowest of court decisions are used in aggregate. But I’m a bit fuzzy on crossing jurisdictional boundaries on EU-wide law.

Note that the GDPR has a specific consistency clause. Outcomes in different member states must be consistent for similar violations. Perhaps the Austrian decision is relevant EU-wide because of this consistency requirement.

Nonsense. Of course it is. I’ve sued several corporations in the US. It’s trivially easy. Fill out a form, submit with $50—90 in fees, get those fees back when you win (and you win by default if the other party does not show up). I even sued a major bank for under $70 once. Won, got awarded court fees, and got paid. It was simple. It’s even standard on the court complaint form to ask for interest compensation for the duration of the dispute & that’s typically awarded as well. No case is too small or too big to get a remedy in the US. I’ve tested this in two different states.

Getting remedies like this is impossible in Europe. European courts are useless for any case under €10k. I’ve been ripped off by rogue contractors & others in amounts of ~€3k-7k. Had solid evidence but the court system is designed to penalize everyone involved. If you have a case worth less than €10k in Europe, your best move is to eat the loss and forget about court. Take it on the chin because you’ll lose even more if you chase it. Under €10k you can get what Europeans call a “cerimonial win”, where the judge says your right, but your costs still match or exceed the amount of the dispute.

There’s also an upper limit in Europe. Class action lawsuits→ non-existent.

I’ve been ripped off in both continents several times. In the US I always get a remedy via various different channels, some of which work before things even get to court. In Europe I always have to eat the loss. Exceptionally I had one court case in Europe, won, but still had to pay for my own registered letter expenses despite the fact that the wrongdoing by the other party was what forced me to send reg’d letters. Legal advisors told me even though the judge agreed with me in the verbal judgement, I would likely have to pay all the court costs when the written judgement arrives (as a winning defendant!). I got lucky and the plaintiff had to cover the court costs in my case. This is somewhat exceptional.