The thing is if you fly to Spain from outside the Schengen zone you have to do a similar thing, although your airline forwards the data on your behalf. And so on for the other Schengen countries (if a Schengen country doesn't currently require it then it'll be rolled out soon).
The main difference between the US and EU might be some aspect of data retention, where usually in the EU the data is deleted after one or two years and there are a few more limitations on who can get to see that data, unlike the US.
So effectively the US and the EU are equally screwed in this respect and each new 'advance' in technology on one side of the pond will end up appearing on the other side, sooner or later.