Gadgetory

so you may have noticed a ton of privacy policy emails lately from companies like Facebook Twitter venmo Spotify this dating app I used to use or remove which to be honest I have no idea what movie even is but I know they updated their policy so the emails don't always say it but those new policies are the result of something called the general data protection regulation or gdpr which goes into effect May 25th it's a new rule in the European Union that's rewriting how data sharing works on the internet and almost no one is ready for it most people don't even know what it is even a lot of The Verge staff what is gdpr um data privacy really personal I've heard of the term GDP our global I work here but I I really don't know so it's totally ok to not fully understand that UDP art because it's really complicated but basically it sets new rules for how companies can treat user data with a particular eye towards tech companies and even if you don't live in Europe companies are rewriting their policies for everyone which is why you're seeing all those emails the big difference is that the GDP ours idea of consent is a lot more intense than previous regulations so companies have to ask for permission more often in concrete terms that means a lot more click to proceed boxes although the transparency requirements also mean the text inside should get a lot more explicit probably the most important change is how companies share data behind the scenes right now visiting a single website might feed data to dozens of different companies for analytics logins and above all advertising but the gdpr means any company that gets that data secondhand will have to explain why they need it and what they're doing with it so no more sharing data willy-nilly another cool thing is that EU residents now have the right to request their data from companies and ask for certain information to be deleted or corrected if it's inaccurate once you put in the request companies will have 30 days to respond or face penalties for a big company like Google or Facebook the scariest part is the fines if they're found to have violated the GDP our regulators can find companies up to 4% of their global revenue so if that company is Amazon for instance that would mean a fine of up to 7 billion dollars and remember no one knows exactly what compliance means so there's no surefire way to avoid the fine although it's bound to have a messy start the assumption is that regul we'll treat the May 25th deadline as a kind of soft opening giving more guidance and adjusting as time goes on still the GDP are really does Marcus see change in how data is handled across the world bit by bit the Internet's getting less creepy and while the u.s. is maybe rolling back Internet rules and grappling with privacy concerns around Facebook the gdpr is a reminder that the government really can protect your data when it wants to I'm gonna do is your data privacy and we're getting a lot of emails about it from everyone you've ever given your email to yeah I have no idea what that stands for all right