GDPR, What, How and Its Consequences on Internet Giants
There are two types of people in the world. One who believe that Captain America did what was the right thing by not signing to sokovia accords considering it a breach of his privacy; free will and personal affairs. While on the other hand, team Iron Man thinks that personal information and continual surveillance is fruitful and will help the government to protect us better so the infringement of privacy should not be much of an issue.
GDPR Explained
That what exactly is GDPR and the debate all about. There is no disputing the fact that internet today has a vital influence on our lifestyle, relationships, decisions, emotions and everything that governs a human behavior. And internet itself is also transforming each day. Soon enough; Artificial Intelligence and Internet of Things will dominate the mainstream and users will enjoy a hyper-personalized internet experience. Which means that Internet will feed you content based on your likes, interests, activities, and preferences. For some; it’s a blessing. For other; it’s a curse. But one thing that we are pretty sure about is that internet is becoming more and more powerful and is going to rule our lives.
And the power of internet is fueled by user data. This is where GDPR comes in action. Global Data Protection Regulation is a new set of rules and regulations designed to give the citizens of European Union more control over their personal data. The primary purpose of these regulations is to clear the vagueness and create a transparent environment so that both, citizens and businesses in the European Union can fully benefit from the burgeoning digital economy.
GDPR is considered to be one of the broadest and most comprehensive laws crafted to address various issues related to privacy and data protection. However, the major focus of the GDPR is to strengthen the conditions of consent so that the tech companies are not able to use vague or unclear statements to get you to agree to give them data.
What types of data will come under the GDPR compliance?
A question that is being asked quite frequently is that what type of data falls under the GDPR’s umbrella of protection and how it will affect website design in future? Well, the thing is that user data is a broad term and it covers many aspects. However, any information considered to be “Personal Data” by EU will enjoy the immunity.
EU defines the term ‘personal data’ as:
“Any information related to a natural person or ‘Data Subject’ that can be used to directly or indirectly identify the person. It can be anything from a name, a photo, an email address, bank details, and posts on social networking websites, medical information, or a computer IP address.”
It doesn’t include news, blogs articles, legal actions or public records.
What Does It Means for Google?
One Big Internet Company that collects your data seemingly every day is Google. Google owns almost 85-90% of the search engine market share of Europe and is clearly the leading, dominating and preferred search engine. Since its inception in 1999, Google itself has updated its privacy policy for 28 times. However, with GDPR in effect, not only Google will have to revamp its advertising policy but also safeguard its user’s personally identifiable info (PII) as a sworn purpose.
Google will have to begin the process of gathering consent for info or data collection from its own first-party users across YouTube, Gmail and Google.com. Considering the fact that most of the internet users find these to be indispensable utilities, Google will not face too many problems in getting the consent.
However, the companies or advertisers who utilize Google’s ad offerings will have to get the consent from their own users to get it done. Although, Google already requires advertisers and publishers to obtain consent from their own end users if they want to utilize their service, but now Google is updating its consent policy particularly for EU users that reflect stringent legal requirements under GDPR.
How Will GDPR Effect Google Revenues?
Some experts believe that Google might face a major setback in its revenues as Google earns 33% of its revenues from Europe. Users refusing to share data and info will hurt Google’s ability to deliver personalized ads and product recommendation. If 30% of European Google users opt out of data sharing, the revenue impact would be almost 2 percentage points, says Deutsche Bank analyst Lloyd Walmsley and his team.
What Does Facebook Have to Say?
Facebook has emerged out as the king of all social media platforms because of its ability to feed personalized content to its users. And just last month Facebook faced serious charges for mishandling the handling of user data.
As per Facebook Release, they are aiming to make a concerted effort to be transparent and proactive regarding GDPR protections. Which means they will focus on three cornerstone commitments i.e. transparency, control, and accountability. And in order to get the things in a right direction, they are also simplifying the design of their privacy settings in a new privacy center. They will also provide refreshers for people as reminders in the form of a pop up in News Feed on how to double-check your privacy settings.
Impact, Consequences and Provisions
The conditions for acquiring consent are stricter under GDPR regulations as the users will be provided with the right to withdraw consent when he/she/ze wants to. Prophecies are that consent will not be valid unless separate consents are acquired for different processing activities. This indicates that if an individual agrees to take a certain action; it is not allowed for websites to assume or add a disclaimer. Moreover, providing an opt-out option is not just enough.
All the online enterprises who fail to comply with the GDPR after its enforcement date may face severe penalties. Websites involved in breaching of GDPR laws could be fined up to 4% of their global annual turnover. Speculations are that in the start the enforcement of fines will be heavy-handed to encourage companies to become compliant quickly. If you have not already, It would be a good idea to make sure your online store is GDPR compliance. Every major CMS has made plugins that easily make store GDPR compliant e.g WordPress GDPR pluging, Magento 2 GDPR etc.
Well, there are a lot of myths circulating around GDPR; well we believe it’s too early to say anything. However, GDPR will ensure the security of an individual’s information as it mandates transparency and clarity for all the communications related to the collection and use of personal data.
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