Agreement is far from certain. The stakes are high. The U.S.-EU commercial relationship is the largest in the world, by far. Beyond that, the very future of the vastly promising electronic commerce marketplace may well hang on whether we can find ways to bridge our differences. It's not a choice between privacy and electronic commerce.
Privacy is essential for electronic commerce to flourish.
People simply will not post their personal information on the Internet unless they receive some guarantee of confidentiality. If we want the benefits of electronic commerce, we must ensure privacy. Such a disruption would be a disaster of historic proportions. It would threaten our ability to carry on trans-Atlantic trade at even current levels, let along expand it. And Europe might just be the first domino.