That could allow banks to report U.S. account-holder information to their own governments rather than the IRS, solving many of the potential legal problems, European financial institutions said.

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Thus, the police can serve the ISP providers with a search warrant and get the information turned over without notifying an e-mail account holder.

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When the company discovers an exposed credit card number, it notifies Scotland Yard, which then sends the information to banks who presumably close the account and notify the credit card holder.

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Giggs is now trying to sue the anonymous account holder and Twitter itself, even though tens of thousands of people went on to re-tweet the information.

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