Europe Wants the World to Embrace Its Internet Rules

European policymakers feel crowded out by the rise of US Internet companies and are proposing a plan to give themselves a larger role: write a new rule book for the Web. Now putting finishing touches on its tough data-privacy regime, the European Union aims to establish a de facto standard that companies would have to embed to sell products in the giant European market. Their hope: As rules such as the right to remove Web links to personal information spread, European companies would get a leg up in the next era of Internet commerce.

There are plenty of hurdles. US technology firms worry that other regions won’t follow the tough EU model, leading to a Balkanized Internet, and some have pushed back against facets. China, which has more Internet users than any other country, is left out of the EU’s lobbying for its data-privacy rules. Still, said Jan Philipp Albrecht, chief negotiator for the European Parliament on the EU’s new data protection law, “If you can achieve…a standard [globally] that is somehow near…your own, then this is an advantage.”