Pushed by supporters as a model for the U.S., Europe's tough Internet privacy regulations have come under fire--from surprising sources. The recent European Union-sponsored Data Protection Conference on privacy heard reports from businesses, media outlets, trade unions and four EU nations . . .
Pushed by supporters as a model for the U.S., Europe's tough Internet privacy regulations have come under fire--from surprising sources. The recent European Union-sponsored Data Protection Conference on privacy heard reports from businesses, media outlets, trade unions and four EU nations that demonstrated why the United States should not follow Europe's pro-regulation path in protecting Internet privacy.

Ever since the EU's data protection directive took effect in 1998, pro-regulation privacy advocates have been trying to convince the United States and the rest of the world to adopt the European model. Under the directive, e-mail addresses and other personal data can be disclosed or transferred to third parties only with the individual's explicit consent. Now that the model has been operational for a few years, the excessive costs of strong privacy regulations are apparent, but privacy worries remain high. This has led to criticism from some unexpected places.