Concerned about internet privacy? You might want to move to Europe. The European Parliament was scheduled to vote July 4 on a proposed agreement between the United States and the 15-nation European Union that would grant Europeans greater online protection from U.S. companies than they legally are required to provide to Americans.

Under the terms of the agreement, U.S. companies that want to transfer personal data on Europeans must commit to detailed standards of notice, user choice, data access and security. Doing so would put the firms into "safe harbor" against regulation under the EU's omnibus Data Protection Directive.

The U.S. Commerce Department, which spent years haggling over safe harbor with the European Commission before striking the deal in March, would keep a public list of eligible companies. For now, financial services and telecom firms in the U.S. are exempt, and the Federal Trade Commission would investigate privacy complaints on a "priority basis."

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