It’s unknown why only the American policy was changed. A comment we saw online argues that it could be because consumer protection laws in other countries may be more strict than those in the US.
I mean.....kind of. That's a simplified version for sure.
Back in 2018 (I think) the FCC, then headed by ajit pai, voted to remove legal protections for net neutrality.
Now, that by itself is unrelated to this story. However, the fact that it happened riled people up enough to distract them from a 2019 law change.
This new law change made it was no longer illegal to sell peoples personal information without consent. People overlooked this at the time, as they argued over net neutrality. Which is also important, and was also recently legally restored. However, that 2019 law change still remains in effect. And now look how many companies are selling your personal data. Or how many hackers are trying to leak that info, so they can sell it themselves.
Undo that law change, and I bet you it's no longer profitable to hack these companies en masse like they are.