A handful of European governments are rallying against Washington and these technology companies.

France has taken the lead, giving Google three months to explain exactly what type of data it collects from customers, or face a fine.

The French National Commission on Computing and Freedom is working with Spain to get Google to be more upfront about the information it collects and says Germany, Britain, Italy and the Netherlands will join the efforts.

This won’t help Facebook’s reputation, either.

“There’s already a sentiment out there that Facebook captures people’s data,” said Brian Blau, research director at Garnter, a technology research firm. “So the real question is whether this will change anybody’s perception about Facebook.”

Although Google, Facebook and other major Internet companies are not likely to go out of business or be banned from these countries, they may have to work through expensive barriers that will give their competitors an inherent advantage.