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[[http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/03/28/us-internet-privacy-idUSTRE72R4KY20110328|

By Eva Dou
For years the United States and Europe, with around 700 million Internet users between them, have diverged in their approach to policing the Web.

But the two sides are converging in their Web privacy positions, partly through intensive meetings in recent months between regulators from Washington and Brussels.

There are still many specifics to be worked out -- final legislative proposals are not expected from the European Union until later this year and the United States in June or July -- but officials are confident about steadily narrowing the gap.

"Until recently there was a common belief that our approaches on privacy differed so much that it would be difficult to work together," the EU's justice commissioner, Viviane Reding, said in a recent speech.

"This can no longer be argued."

Experts from both sides gathered again in Brussels last week. Afterwards the U.S. ambassador to the EU, William Kennard, mirrored Reding's thoughts, saying differences between the two sides had been overstated.

"People in Europe thought we were not as concerned as we are about updating our privacy laws," he said, adding that the U.S. has now made its support of stronger privacy rules clear.

The crux of the issue for Europe comes down to delivering strict measures to protect individuals, so that companies must, for example, respect an individual's "right to be forgotten" -- ensuring that their data are erased if they so wish.

The United States has tended to prefer giving companies responsibility for policing themselves, with the obligation to sign up to codes of conduct, not to meet specific legislation.

Regulators on both sides say they have moved closer to a common position following U.S. President Barack Obama's endorsement this month of a "privacy bill of rights," which officials hailed as the first time in 40 years that a U.S. administration had backed new baseline privacy protections.

Leveling THE INTERNET

The goal of convergence is two fold: to aim for a level playing field that minimizes "regulatory arbitrage," and to ensure that Web-based companies have clear guidelines, allowing them to grow globally without legislative surprises.

That is particularly important as the Internet becomes an ever larger part of the economy -- recent figures from Google indicate that 10 percent of British gross domestic product will be generated from the Web by 2015, for example.

Yet despite the bullish talk from American and European officials, some privacy experts remain concerned about how political rhetoric, such as the EU's "right to be forgotten," will eventually be translated into concrete policies.

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