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Comment on UK to overhaul privacy rules in post-Brexit departure from GDPR

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There's a name for this - when a large bloc of countries require something legally, and the rest of the world end up following.

You can probably "thank" the EU for not having to carry around individual LG, Samsung, Anker, Sony, Apple, whoever charging bricks:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Common_external_power_supply

The name you want is Brussels Effect.

It is more costly to maintain separate product lines than to comply.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brussels_effect

aka The California Effect for the 'mericans

It's not 'a large block' it's just a large enough market, relative to a smaller market.

Most things in Canada are dictated (or influenced) by US standards.

Also, the EU is not quite big enough to force those manufacturers into 'same standard' on a global basis. The US actually might no be either alone. It's entirely feasible they could make $ by using different chargers in 'the remaining 80% of the world'. They don't do it partly for the reg, but mostly for other reasons.

Apple breaks other industry norms all the time for other product features, they do it for hardware revenues, and they can do it because they have market power which nobody else quite has, though maybe Samsung could try.

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