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European Economic Area (EEA) Data Protection Authorities (DPAs) must confront the strong tension between the EU Data Protection (DP) Directive and the public freedom of expression daily. This article is grounded on a comprehensive and original survey of EEA DPAs based on hypothetical "new media" internet scenarios and demonstrates that these important regulators generally adopt an expansive interpretation of DP's role here. Only in the case of the online media archive did a majority see the special purposes shield for journalism, literature and art (art.9) engaged. Default DP norms were generally held fully applicable as regards the social networking site, search engine indexer and street mapping service, while vis-à-vis the blogger, social networker and rating website many more DPAs acknowledged that such norms required interpretation with regard for freedom of expression. There was significant diversity in response which was not directly related to divergent national transpositions of the Directive but was associated with differences in both the scope and depth of the special purposes derogation in national law. This article proposes reforms aiming to ensure a more harmonised, legally certain and balanced reconciliation of rights online.
