A new directive by the Privacy Protection Authority may
lay a deathblow on exits, mainly by companies selling to
consumers
The New Directive
Most data held by commercial companies with respect to their
customers is subject to the Israeli Privacy Law. Such statute
focuses on the duty to register data bases with the Data Bases
Registrar.
Recently, the Privacy Protection Authority published a draft of
a directive regarding the transfer of such data bases in the
framework of mergers and acquisitions of companies. The principle
guiding the PDA is that the customers (and not the company holding
the data bases) are the owners of the data in the data bases.
Allegedly, the draft sets the following rule: upon the sale of
the company, the requirement shall be only notice to the customers
in the data base. However, the draft further states that in the
event that the transfer of the data as part of the company's
sale is to a company of different character or the objective
