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EU privacy laws to spell an end to Facebook for free?

A lawyer warns that proposed EU privacy laws would make Facebook and other ad-supported online services unsustainable if they are passed.

Nick Heath Chief reporter
Nick Heath is a computer science student and was formerly a journalist at TechRepublic and ZDNet.
Nick Heath
James Martin/CNET

Facebook, Gmail, and other ad-supported online services would need to start charging users if proposed changes to EU data protection laws go ahead, a legal expert has warned.

Substantial restrictions on how companies handle personal data have been put forward under the draft European Data Protection Regulation, which will shortly be put before the European Parliament.

The proposals would severely curtail the ability of services to claim they have legitimate grounds for collecting, analyzing, or selling the personal data of their users. They also make it far more difficult for services to claim they have a user's consent for processing their data, even where a user has signed up to a site's terms and conditions.

Read more of "EU privacy laws to spell an end to Facebook for free?" at ZDNet.