Several times a week I am seeing emails and even mailings relating to GDPR, European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation. As example, yesterday from Google Analytics I received a lengthy email that starts immediately with “Over the past year we’ve shared how we are preparing to meet the requirements of the GDPR, the new data protection law coming into force on May 25, 2018″.
If you reside in Europe, or do any part of information handling within the EEA (European Economic Area, you must abide to this regulation. According to many resources, this is the most aggressive personal data protections policy ever.
GDPR is protecting personal information and private data that companies and online social media platforms access every day. The law simply requires transparency in how they use your information. These businesses are required to ‘plainly’ describe what they are using, how they are using it and provide a process to opt out and delete you data. Google has already lost a law suit that forced them to delete URLs from its search results.
Even if you don’t live in the European Union, companies are working to ensure their terms comply with the law because any global online company that collects data from any one person living in the EU is held accountable. Moreover, the punishments are significant: for the most serious infractions, companies would be liable to pay fines up to four percent of their annual income……….The U.S. is not currently considering any rules of this kind. Mark Zuckerberg himself suggested he wouldn’t implement these stricter rules in the U.S. if the law didn’t require it. Europe is the reason you are getting all of those updated terms of service emails, Julia Pimentel, April 26, 2018, Complex.com
Using my example from the email to me from Google Analytics, I currently and/or have subscribed to Google Analytics in the past and they are requiring me to take a few steps in order to maintain my use of the Analytical tools. Below are a list of a few excerpts in the email I wanted to highlight.
- If you service users in the EEA (or are based in Switzerland, where our updated terms are also relevant), or are otherwise subject to the GDPR, please review and accept these terms and provide related contact information.
- All clients using 360 products, clients using Data Studio, and clients using standard versions of Tag Manager or Optimize whose accounts were created before March 12, 2018, can review and accept data processing terms in their account(s).
- For clients based in the EEA or Switzerland, updated data processing terms have already been included in online terms for all Google Analytics and Attribution accounts and for Tag Manager and Optimize accounts created on or after March 12, 2018.
- For clients based outside of the EEA or Switzerland, data processing terms can be reviewed and accepted in the UIs of each account.
- Once you accept the new data processing terms, they’ll supplement your current contract or Terms of Service and will take effect on May 25, 2018
- If you contract through a Sales Partner for any 360 products within the Google Analytics Suite, you should seek advice from the parties with whom you contract.
- You can refer to privacy.google.com/businesses to learn more about Google’s data privacy policies and approach.
It simplifies the steps you need to take to protect what you analyzing, once steps are taking it assist with adding the right language to protect you (and them). Nicely done. I need to dive into GDPR more but it seems to be doing a good job of forcing good behavior with these companies and tools.
What are your thoughts on GDPR? Its effect on businesses that manage our data? How successful do you feel it will be long term?
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