I use all WD Golds for storage now but I have some Seagate barracudas from 2005 that still work. I don't use them anymore but the data is still there. I fire them up every so often to see. I know that's purely situational. I pretty much only buy WD now.
I agree. As an American I didn't understand how this could happen. However, and this excuses nothing, but read the book "They Thought they were Free," by Milton Mayer. It explains how normal people were wrapped up in Germany. It was eye opening.
But it isn't even a legal tactic. EOs mean nothing. They are not laws.