Google, Facebook Face Tighter EU Grip With New Privacy Law

By Stephanie Bodoni, Bloomberg News

Google, Facebook Inc. and other Internet companies will be covered by strict new European Union privacy rules that seek to limit access to consumers’ data.

The EU proposed in a draft law unveiled in Brussels Tuesday giving online users more control of their settings and limiting the “overload of consent requests” for cookies people encounter when browsing the web. The rules would extend the EU’s ePrivacy law beyond telecommunications operators to include “new providers of electronic communications services, such as WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger, Skype, Gmail, iMessage, or Viber,” the regulator said.

“I want to ensure ...