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According to Reuters, in the following days the European Union will take a more detailed look and also apply some new rules to how Internet corporations handle and secure personal information. This is a long-awaited move, especially because of what effect it could have over Internet giants like Google and Facebook.

In a recent speech that happened on Sunday, the vice president of European Commission, Viviane Reding declared that according to the new Data-protection legislation there will be an increase in user protection and by doing so offering a new start for new companies and businesses to flourish in Europe. At the DLD conference held in Munich, Viviane assured that from this point on, consumers will be able to offer their data and have it protected only if they trust the company offering much more control to the individual. At the same time she also acknowledged the need of a more simplified approach in Europe when it comes to online data protection. The biggest flaw in the current system is the fact that it is too cumbersome and costly for business. The fact that “in Europe we have too many rules, conflicting rules,” and also that businesses have an extra cost because of fragmentation of around 2.3 billion euros a year needs to change very quickly.

The new data-protection rules are ready and will be most likely issued on January 25. There could be a few bumps on the road mainly because the new EU regulation will need to be approved by national governments. The problems could appear in states like France and Germany, places where leaders could find it difficult seeing their oversight on privacy matters shift to Brussels. With so many things and rules changing the process will be probably long and will take at least two years to complete. This means there are numerous opportunities for the rules to change in this time. Furthermore, big internet companies will be required to fully comply not sooner than 2014 or 2015 which still lets a great amount of time for companies to find small backdoors.

These new rules will be somehow a turnover for how people use Internet. For example if we take a look a social networks like Facebook and LinkedIn, they managed to attract billion of users with the help of a so-called cloud computing service. This gives accessibility and the option for people to stock data on distant servers and then access that information from any location they desire. It all looks very ok at the first view, but the big problem comes when you ask yourself who owns all this information. Also an even bigger issue comes when we try to find the limit in which companies are able to use for personal purpose this information. These are some of the major debates that are still lingering among Internet firms, governments and consumers.

Probably some of the biggest cases have been with Facebook. For example, last year in November, the world’s largest social network was investigated by U.S. and European regulators regarding on how it uses the personal user data stored and also about their privacy policies. In the same month they signed a settlement with the U.S. Federal Trade Commission in which they accept independent and neutral audit in the next 20 years to come. Also more recently Ireland signed an agreement with Facebook regarding how the social site treats international user data.

And last but not least let’s not forget the last breach in Sony servers that happened last year. We are speaking here about some high-profile breaches that allowed hackers to steal personal information of around 77 million users.

That being reminded let’s take a more in-depth look on what will change. In the draft posted by Reuters, the latest EU proposals will offer more power to regulators when it comes to fighting issues like data-protection breaches. From this point on companies that have such problems are required to urgently announce regulators at the first impression of data being lost to a third-party.

The new laws will allow member states to give impressive fines reaching sums of even 1% of their global revenue when major violation of EU data rules happens. Although in a recent article that appeared in last December in Financial Times the sum was up to 5% it appears that new discussions were made and changes happened. Although for many 1% won’t seem too much if we think again of companies like Facebook and a worldwide scale we could see some impressive sums of money being obtained.

One of the most interesting aspects of these new rules could be the so-called “right to be forgotten” option. This is probably one of the rules that will have the biggest impact on users. At any point the person is able to require that his information should be erased and not be available on Internet anymore. Another interesting rule could be the “right to data portability”. This will allow users to simply transfer the personal information they have between multiple companies and services. We can now easily see how these new laws could influence the way modern social networks do business.

On the other hand, Facebook submitted at EU last year a note in which they stated that because the new rules are to strict there will be multiple areas which will present numerous problems especially because of the fast-changing world of the Internet.

At the DLD conference, opinions were divided between two sides. For example, the CEO of Germany’s professional social network Xing , Stefan Gross-Selbeck stated that the rules are a little too harsh if we were to compare them to what US legislation has. He said that he has a high appreciation to what EU members try to create in Europe but regulations that companies like Facebook are obliged to respect are nothing to what his company has to sustain.

At the other side there was an interesting reaction from Chris Poole, founder of the online community 4chan, a community that many consider to be a dream place for hackers. He admitted that there is a big need of even tougher laws in order for companies to better protect user data. He referred especially to the Sony breach and said he would love to see the company pay for what happened and that these new rules will allow this.

With the date of 25th approaching we can only wait and see what the first set of rules will look like. As we already said because of the big period of time when they will be applied it is most likely that these will not be the final ones.