A pedestrian passes European Union flags outside the the European Commission headquarters, in Brussels, Belgium, on Monday, Dec. 19, 2011. (Jock Fistick - Bloomberg) LEADING THE DAY: Data protection authorities from the European Union have asked Google to delay its new privacy policy while it examines the possible consequences the policy could have on the protection of personal data. The European Union has asked the French data protection authority to lead the examination.

“In light of the above, we call for a pause in the interests of ensuring that there can be no misunderstanding about Google’s commitments to information rights of their users and EU citizens, until we have completed our analysis,” Article 29 working group chairman Jacob Kohnstamm wrote in a letter to Google chief executive Larry Page. The Article 29 working party is a group of data protection officials from different EU member states.

The new policy, which would unify 60 of Google’s services under one policy and allow for greater data integration between services, is set to go into effect March 1.

AfterGoogle’s closed-door session, questions linger: House lawmakers met with Google officials on Thursday to discuss controversial changes to the firm’s privacy policy, with some saying they left the meeting with greater concerns and more questions, The Washington Post reported.

Rep. Mary Bono Mack (R-Calif.), chairwoman of the Commerce, Manufacturing and Trade Subcommittee, said she worried the company’s policy changes weren’t transparent enough and didn’t clearly put users in control. She said it appeared Google also did not quickly delete data upon a user’s request.

Some lawmakers lauded Google’s privacy dashboard, which shows users what data is being collected.

Commerce Dept. job site hit with virus: A virus has forced Commerce Department officials to block employee Internet access for nine days, The Washington Post reported, after attacking the computer network of a job-development agency in the Commerce Department

Hackers have likely infiltrated the system, experts said, but Commerce Department officials said they do not know where the attack came from and how it penetrated government computers, officials said. Officials have brought in outside experts to restore the networks.

Online protest over data retention bill: Rep. Lamar Smith (R-Texas) is again the target of online protests. Now there is growing opposition over the Protecting Children from Internet Pornographers Act, which passed the Judiciary committee in July and has not been scheduled for consideration on the House floor, Judiciary spokeswoman Kim Hicks told The Hill.

Following the online protest over the Stop Online Piracy Act, the progressive group Demand Progress and members of Anonymous have begun lobbying against the bill online.

The bill is aimed at stopping child pornography but would compel Internet service providers to keep 18 months of data logging which IP addresses consumers used. The Justice Department has argued that current laws do not allow for long-enough periods of data retention, which frustrates criminal investigations. But the bill passed the committee over objections of online privacy groups who said the bill was far-reaching and did not effectively combat the problem

Facebook “power users”: The latest study by the Pew Center’s Internet and American Life Project has found that the average Facebook user has 245 friends, while the average friend on Facebook has 359 friends. The reason for the disparity is simple: A small number of people are isolated and don’t appear on many lists, but popular people show up again and again.

Another interesting result of the study finds that some Facebook users tend to get more messages, friend requests, likes and photo tags than they give, pointing to the existence of a few Facebook “power-users” driving the site’s activity.

Keith Hampton, the lead author of the reports, said that power users make up around 20-30 percent of Facebook’s users, and that there are three specialties within these power users. Some users send a lot of friend requests, while others most frequently “like” posts and pictures. A third kind of power user tends to make a lot of photo tags.