Blocked from viewing US news outlets, overwhelmed by emails, Europeans shared memes and cheered. Facebook and Google, though, may have little to cheer about, now that they’re sued for “forced consent” over new privacy rules. The new set of strict regulations, also known as the General Data Protection Regulation (or briefly GDPR), was passed in April 2016 and came into effect on Friday to safeguard and protect EU residents from having their information collected and possibly misused.