Most unfortunately, both articles tend to depict the effort to protect privacy as a polarized contest of wills pitting the EU against the United States or vice versa. This is simply not true. The U.S. administration is just as concerned as the EU about coming up with a good fix. That is serious. Similarly, the EU is just as concerned as the United States about maintaining uninterrupted flows of data across the Atlantic.
Information flows are what our economies run on.
The EU and the United States agree there is a problem and that we have to be part of the solution. In the meantime, we should all avoid jumping to conclusions. The Swedish authorities ruled against American Airlines in 1997, after the directive was written. U.S. industry is concerned that the directive has hardened the European authorities on privacy issues. My article stated explicitly that both the EU and the United States are very concerned about protecting the privacy of consumer data.