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EU Recommends Slashing Search Data Retention
Wayland writes "The European Union's Article 29 Working Group has completed its PDF report on data protection and search engines. The group recommends that search engines only be allowed to hold onto search data for six months. 'To hang onto data for longer, search engine operators will need to show that such data is "strictly necessary" to offer the service. Google and others have long said that they need to retain data in order to refine search results, prevent click fraud, and launch new services like spell check (which, in Google's case, was built from user search data). In addition, the data that is kept will need to be guarded more closely. The working group concluded that IP addresses could be used to identify individuals; if not by the search engine itself, then by law enforcement or after a subpoena.'"
I think the main difference is the system by which people come to power.
In most European countries ( and in effect the EU itself ) there is a plethora of political parties that are likely to come into power. With so many competing parties there is a large chance at least one of your competitors will point out your shady behavior, and it is thus easier to try to outdo them in positive ways rather than malicious ones.
In contrast, in the US the entire electoral system more or less favors a two party system, where the winner takes it all. In such a system you gain a lot by attacking a single enemy. If you're a democrat all you need to do is to break things for the republicans, and vice versa. Such tactics don't work if you have 5-6 potential candidates because if you try to fuck over 4 of your opponents you run the risk that they will conspire against you. The american system is very easily corrupted since once you have influence with the two main parties there is little to stop you, while gaining control of a 6-7 party parliament without anybody crying foul is more tricky.
Simply put, in the EU political parties compete for power, in the US there is more of a cartel or monopoly. You can also notice these trends if you look at individual EU countries. Britain has more of a one party system, and consequentially their politics are a lot more "american" than many other European ones.
It is also rather possible that the EU is merely better because it is relatively new at the moment, and that with time it will become corrupted as third parties learn to manipulate it. Time will tell...