However, if those rules went so far as to dictate how the code or whatever was developed in ways that alter its development process *and* essentially places the European Union as the de facto governing regulatory body for entire world....that won't fly. That's what California tries to be in the United States with respect to emissions regulations and other things, btw.

How? Companies don't have to develop the same products, the same way, with the same characteristics for every market. They often don't. One classic example is an automobile, which has to be homologated to match the requirements for each jurisdiction they're being sold for. Including emissions standards, by the way - you can't sell cars in the U.S. that don't meet our emissions standards for various pollutants, even if those cars would be perfectly legal in your home country. Europe's perfectly free to adopt its own standards, and companies are perfectly free to choose not to offer their services in Europe if they don't want to meet those standards.

It doesn't fly for California because the U.S. is a single nation, with a presumption baked into the Commerce Clause that products will be able to be sold uniformly throughout the country. No such conditions apply to international trade, unless they are negotiated for and agreed to.

So Europe wants to have standards that it thinks are good for its citizens when it comes to data services. Who are we to tell them not to? After all, they're just as entitled to "Europe First" as we are to "America First."