Google has admitted violating European data protection law by complying with a number of requests from US intelligence for data stored in its EU datacentres.
According to Softpedia, the company was compelled to hand over the information under the US Patriot Act, which allows the US government to demand data regardless of where in the world it comes from.
In addition to this, the US government can force said companies to keep quiet about any data sharing.
This poses particular problems for the US based multinationals, including Microsoft, Google and Amazon who must obey local laws wherever they operate.
In June, Microsoft admitted handing over European customer data from its Office 365 products to the US Government.
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