As we have reported before, Europe’s General Data Protection Rule (GDPR) went into effect on May 25, 2018: It seeks to protect the personal data of EU citizens. In addition, it increases the obligations of firms that collect or process personal data. Thus, this rule does not just apply to firms based in the EU, but to all firms doing business with EU customers. Today, we examine the early online impact of GDPR.
Early Online Impact of GDPR on Leading Firms
Thank you to Sierra Skelly of Siege Media and to Varonis for the following material and infographic. They focus on the early online impact of GDPR on leading companies:
“On May 25th of this year, the European Union officially implemented the General Data Protection Regulation, known widely as GDPR. The regulation made sweeping changes to the online privacy landscape. It chiefly affects how companies may collect and share the personal data of users.”
“The regulation applies to the citizens of the EU. Yet, users across the world found their inboxes flooded with updated privacy policies from companies,. Even those located in the United States. The reason? Yes, the regulation applies to the data of EU citizens. However, it also impacts all companies that collect data from these citizens, regardless of where the firms are physically located.”
“To help better understand the privacy policy updates that filled your inbox in May, Varonis took a look at how company privacy policies changed after GDPR implementation. Specifically, it looked at the privacy policies of 10 tech companies. It studied three variables: word count, reading time, and reading level.”
“Results were surprisingly, given that GDPR aimed to add transparency to how data were obtained. Varonis found that the word count and reading difficulty of privacy policies increased almost across the board. Check out the full infographic below to see for yourself.”
