The European Union has approved a new agreement on how consumer data must be transferred with the United States. This brings to an end  months of delay caused by fears about U.S. surveillance.

The so-called Privacy Shield, the new commercial data-transfer pact, had been tentatively agreed to by the E.U.  and U.S. in February. It comes into effect July 11.

The E.U.’s top court had struck down the previous data-transfer agreement, Safe Harbor, because of fears of intrusive U.S. surveillance. This left such big U.S. companies as Google, Facebook and MasterCard in legal limbo.

To read The Guardian’s story on this, please hit this link.