If they have German customers, they are bound to German laws because they are doing business in Germany. Sure it will not apply to American DO customers, but if they to have German customers, they are bound by their local laws and those laws apply to protect citizens of that nation.
>If they have German customers, they are bound to German laws because they are doing business in Germany.
that is simply not true... Now for DO it might be because they have EU possibly even German Data centers but simply because a Citizen of Germany visits a web site and signs up for a online service does not automatically make german laws apply to that business.
Now it possible you could sue in Germany, the American business would ignore you, and any judgment you got from a German Court would likely be unenforceable in the US
> DO it might be because they have EU possibly even German Data centers but simply because a Citizen of Germany visits a web site and signs up for a online service does not automatically make german laws apply to that business.
Are you saying this because you are extrapolating from American law regarding whether a company has a 'nexus' within a given state, or perhaps thinking about taxation?
In those specific cases, what you are saying is true, but in general national-level governments do not care that foreign companies are not actually headquartered within their borders. They demand (arrogantly one might say) that all companies doing business with their citizens follow X,Y,Z rules or else they'll try to sanction the company.
Granted if a company is truly foreign then any sanction would be pretty limited in scope.
However, easy sanction is to stop credit card processors and banking agencies from dealing with a foreign company thus stopping your citizens from easily giving them money.
I am not extrapolating from American tax law at all
I as an American citizen am in no way bound by German law
For example If I put a website selling digital Nazi Merchandise, and a german citizen buys it, I am in no way violating the German ban on those things because I am not bound by german law, any attempt to enforce germen law upon me would quickly be squashed by American Courts as a violation of my free speech
Now Germany can forbid it citzens from going to my site, it can attempt to have that site blocked from Germany, it can even prevent other german businesses from doing being with me (including credit card company as your example) but it can never compel me directly as I am not under their authority at all
They could just instruct banks to sending payments to DO. I don't think DO would want to lose all German start ups and customers because of a few stupid coupons.
Germany probably could not stop people from visiting their website, but stop payments would be just as worse for DO.
