U.S. businesses from online coupon company RetailMeNot Inc (SALE.O) to security software company Symantec Corp (SYMC.O) said a European change to rules governing transatlantic personal data transfers would hurt U.S. companies and called for a quick fix.
An EU court on Tuesday struck down a deal to let U.S. and European companies easily transfer personal data between continents, leaving some U.S. companies concerned that they will be frozen out of the market or replaced by EU competitors.
“The biggest fear is they’ll lose the opportunity to provide data services in Europe,” said Emery Simon, counselor to BSA | The Software Alliance, an industry group for software companies such as Oracle (ORCL.N), Salesforce (CRM.N) and IBM (IBM.N).
Tech giants like IBM are more prepared for the change, because they have come to use a number of different legal arrangements they say will keep their data flowing.
