First there was SOPA. And now the European Union might go down the same road. A new data protection act due to be released officially this week. Reuters has managed to get its hands on a draft and stated that the rules are tighter and very rigorous. The act targets big companies like Facebook, attacking the much debated privacy issues. If the big boys won’t bow its head to the new laws imposed by the European Union, the act ensures that fines will be cashed in, for every rule violated.
The set of rules will be imposed on a 27 countries all members of the European Union bandwagon. Since the first EU regulations have been drafted somewhere around 1995 and with everything going on with major companies selling private information just to get in some cash flow, maybe the idea of revisiting this current hot issue isn’t so bad.
Most companies targeted aren’t extremely happy with the idea. Here’s Microsoft Europe’s chief operating officer and associate general counsel, Ron Zink: “We have been pushing for harmonization of privacy laws for several years, but we are concerned that these proposals may be too prescriptive.”
Facebook isn’t too happy about the idea either, so it is already making plans for a rebellion. Given the fact that if a company violates the EU rules it could get a fine as big as 1% of total revenue, it is understandable. Anyway, the law is going to be proposed this week, but it won’t actually be viable until 2014 or 2015, so Google and Facebook have plenty of time to come up with a battle plan.
[ttjad]
