Note the privacy protections being written into law in Germany:
"Privacy protection: Personal data can be gathered only to the extent that is necessary to perform the requested service (like connecting to the Internet) or for accounting purposes, and must be erased immediately thereafter. The consumers must be forewarned of the type, scope and place of the data collection and have the right to access their personal information at any time."
Since this bill is now passing into law, I will expect an immediate exodus of corporations from the country in order to avoid these draconian laws. Better start selling my deutschemarks, huh?
There is nothing much new in that law. Internet service providers have always been subject to the general Privacy Law. Also have a look at the EU privacy directive, which is similar in spirit: http://www.echo.lu/legal/en/dataprot/directiv/directiv.html You'll probably not be very surprised to learn that e.g. many credit card companies operate from Denmark or the Netherlands, and that even the state-owned railway company has orders for their customer cards processed in the US and the cards mailed from Holland.