While most of the country was watching the Euro 2012 match between Germany and Italy, a handful of German MPs voted through a law that would allow local authorities to collate and sell people's personal information - without their permission.
The law was passed by Germany's lower house of Parliament (the Bundestag) but will also need to be passed in the upper house (the Bundesrat) before becoming law. The German government has now disowned the law following dissent from the German public and a number of senior politicians.
For more detailed information on this story, see The Local, Germany.