Austria's Max Schrems: US High-tech Giants' Worst Nightmare?

[J65nko]

From http://www.securityweek.com/austrias...orst-nightmare

Few in America's Silicon Valley could have predicted that a young Austrian law graduate who spent a semester studying there would one day become high-tech companies' worst nightmare.

Yet that's exactly what Max Schrems achieved on Tuesday when the European Union's top court ruled in his favor, declaring that a key transatlantic data deal relied on by giant corporations such as Facebook was invalid in the light of widespread spying revealed by the Edward Snowden scandal.

The verdict strikes down the so-called Safe Harbour pact signed between the European Commission and the United States in 2000, allowing American companies to transfer data from the EU to the US as long as they ensured adequate levels of protection.