Germany: Employer may google job applicant

 A proposed law on the regulation of employee privacy in Germany is said to establish an equitable balance between the interests of employees in protecting personal data and the legitimate interests of employers. Under the envisaged law, employers would still be allowed to enter job applicants' names into search engines, but social networks that are used for electronic communication may not be used for research, except for social networks that exist to represent the professional qualifications of their members. It will e.g. be illegal to become a Facebook friend with an applicant in order to check out private details. But if an employer turns down an application with another reasoning it might be difficult to prove that the negative answer was based on Facebook postings.

The draft German law (in German)

Also see: German law bans Facebook research for hiring decisions, Outlaw