The European Union (EU) has been working on comprehensive reforms to its data privacy laws. The reforms are intended to simplify a welter of national regulations, bring policy into line with enormous developments in technology and enormous volumes of personal data, and respond to European citizens' concerns about their own data privacy.

But in the course of internal negotiations within the European Commission, the EU's executive body, proposed protections have been substantially watered down. And these changes have been made largely in response to intense lobbying on the part of the US government, acting on behalf of American firms.

The lobbying pressure reportedly led to an "intense debate" among the members of the European Commission. Viviane Reding, vice president of the Commission, originally drafted the new set of rules. But her draft met pushback from the more business-oriented members of the Commission, notably Karel de Gucht, with the Trade portfolio, and Neelie Kroes, responsible for the EU's "Digital Agenda."

Much of the contention centered on rules for notification about data breaches, and on the "right to be forgotten." This refers to users' ability to have their personal information deleted, at their request, from the databases maintained by social websites and other companies that collect customer personal information.

Debate also focused on issues relating to transfers of personal data for security reasons. In this context the term security should apparently be understood in the context of 'national security' rather than information security.

The European Digital Rights organization (EDRI) noted that the US government often uses leverage with companies that have US offices in order to collect data on the political activity of foreigners having no direct connection to the US.

Business interest – especially marketing-department interest – in maintaining large volumes of customer information is understandable. This is the era of Big Data after all, and also an era when firms hope to use targeted marketing to gain a competitive edge.