I was going to say, it’s starting to sound more like the EU is just taking kickbacks in a circuitous legal manner rather than via a shady under the table deal with men and trench coats exchanging packages of unmarked bills.
I mean, in the last 5 months how many times has the EU fined meta or google?
If you really want to make a message that sticks, you ban the danger sites from operating in your collective and then fine them for their past misdeeds.
If you want to be seen as lenient, you then set down a list of objectives that the site must adhere to in order to be reinstated in the collective.
Anything short of that is just lining your pockets. I mean, what is the money being used for?
If I can transport things back and forth, I would probably go and max out a credit card and buy all of the gold that I can to bring with me for trade.
Then I would go to the library of Alexandria and use my cell phone to get photocopies of as many books as I possibly can, and in the downtime I would go to any open Street markets and purchase any cool relics that I can find.
Then I could come back and share some of the Lost books of Alexandria with the world and also have period correct relics that have somehow magically not been exposed to a thousand years of environmental corrosion.
Then again, that would probably also mess up their radioisotope dating but I don’t know if it’s specific enough to only cover a thousand ish years.
Maybe if I have a little more time to prep I can find some place that I know hasn’t been Disturbed and like put them in an airtight safe and store them for me to go back and ReDiscover now.