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There were two big expectations from this morning's release of the initial draft of data protection regulations from the European Commission, both of which were built up through quite a bit of fanfare from EC Vice President Viviane Reding's office last November. One was that the Commission would "stick it to" the U.S. Patriot Act, the law that enables American law enforcement agencies access to private data elsewhere in the world, under controlled conditions. Another was that citizens of E.U. member states would be granted a "right to be forgotten," to order online firms collecting personal data about them to purge their records.

The initial draft of these new Data Protection regulations shows moderation on both counts.

The twentieth anniversary of the World Wide Web was celebrated worldwide a few days ago, which says something quite compelling about the state of the Web itself. As ReadWriteWeb Editor-in-Chief Richard MacManus personally verified two years ago by interviewing the guy who thought up the thing in the first place, the Web was established in 1989.

Historically, facts have been considered impediments to good stories. That is until recently, when not even the literary equivalent of blinking neon "FAIL" signs have stopped entirely apocryphal stories from propagating like mercury. Just ask any Internet Explorer user with a high IQ: When the opportunity for a juicy headline arises, such trifle things as facts, math, and common sense don't even amount to blips on the Web's radar.

Last week we told you about Microsoft's admission that, if compelled by the U.S. Patriot act, the company would hand over data stored outside the U.S. to U.S. authorities. The Patriot Act requires that U.S. companies comply with requests for information, even if that information is stored overseas, and companies may be required to provide that information to U.S. authorities without notifying customers that data was being accessed.

This week some further complication was added to the matter: Computer World reports that European Union officials believe the Patriot Act conflicts with the Data Protection Directive, which requires organizations to inform users when personal information is disclosed.