First of, law exists (i.e. "means anything") only if you have the means to enforce it, like armed squads to terrorize the population or a leverage of some other kind. Like, for example, Amazon (wherever it's located) probably has to abide to GDPR as long as it wants to sell to EU customers. Orlando city, located in the US under US jurisdiction, and not trying to sell anything to anybody in the EU doesn't give a fuck about European laws, even if they stated that Orlando should.
Second, it seems to be a popular misunderstanding, that GDPR affects Europeans everywhere they go and you need person's confirmation to store his data. It affects people currently located in Europe, and there are listed multiple very vague excuses for storing user's data without explicit consent, like "in order to protect the vital interests of the data subject or of another natural person", with which global tracking by law enforcement agencies could be easily justified.
If a European goes there, he’ll have to sign a GDPR agreement? but if the city grew tired of that, they could forbid access to Europeans altogether. Which I’m not surprised would happen one day, perhaps not under this form, but becausr of our overprotected status.
Yes, this is what happens. National sovereignty still exists. Maybe, since Europeans have a supra-national entity above their countries, they don't quite grok that everywhere else a country is the top giver of the law.
I doubt it’s particularly different to Americans having trouble with the idea that not everyone has the first or second amendments. Or, even, an explicit constitution.
It's the same with many europeans having trouble with the idea that you can't safely drink tap water, have no public health guarantee and education isn't equal for everyone in the US ;-)
On a more serious note; stuff like the US amendments is often already included in the base law (the generic name for constitution) as they are much older than the US. The times where the base law was somewhat more moldable (like before widespread literacy) made that possible. For example, freedom of religion is pretty universal, except in countries where a ruling religion exists which inherently to the religion bans all others. Arms are usually removed from base laws a few hundred years in as they directly conflict with the laws that ban killing people.
I could become a “Canary Clause”: you know a jurisdiction doesn’t abuse privacy or doesn’t deploy warrantless ubiquitous surveillance until the GDPR compliance clause disappears
GDPR applies if you are a European citizen visiting a website while on holiday in USA, for example. It doesn’t seem to me that GDPR stops when crossing a border. Which is why it has so much worldwide reach.
