There seems to be some weight being put behind new internet privacy laws in our European Government. I am not sure whether this will entail anything onerous for businesses but legislators are discussing laws which would allow a user to request his or her details being removed from a website, such as Facebook or Twitter. This from Mashable;
“The suggested law calls for a “right to be forgotten” and a “right to data portability.” The former would require Internet companies such as Facebook and Google to completely wipe all of a user’s info from their servers if such a request was made. The latter demands users be allowed to easily transfer data from one online service to another, a currently difficult task.
The “right to be forgotten” wouldn’t be granted to users attempting to remove information relevant to a criminal investigation.
All online businesses operating in Europe would be bound to the new rules, whether or not they’re based on the continent. Should web services fail to comply with these rights, they would be slapped with fines of up to €1 million or up to 2% of the global annual turnover of a company (The total value of all products made in a 12-month period).”
We will be interested to see exactly what is determined to be an ‘online business’ as this could effect businesses which allow users to place comments on their site, or even purchase history from eCommerce sites.