I strongly wonder how many US firms understand EU data laws... Isn't there a campaign against a small company called Facebook and their disregard for our laws?
If you want US firms to pay attention to EU data laws, you'd have to devote some real resources to enforcement.
From this side of the pond, these laws look like they're only very sporadically enforced, and only against large entities like Facebook who've got the legal resources to deal with the hassle. When viewed with typical American attitudes, that barely makes them laws at all - they're the equivalent of jaywalking in NYC.