My brain hurts. I’ve spent a lot of time this month learning about and preparing for the new GDPR regulations that Europe and other countries have adopted and go into effect May 25, 2018.
GDPR stands for General Data Processing Regulations. In a simplified form, it’s to help protect people’s data on the Internet and give subscribers and such more control on how people can use their personal information.
I see GDPR as helping everyone take a bite out of SPAM emails. At least I hope so.
I am NOT a lawyer. I am confused like a lot of people. All this GDPR, marketing, and technology in general fries my brain. With that said, here is how my overworked brain understands why I need to do my best to comply with GDPR.
A lot of people use email lists and other avenues to contact many people at once. Some people believe that because a service collects and holds the information on people who have subscribed to their email lists and such, that this law doesn’t apply to them. But I understand it to be more than that. Though the info on my subscribers is held by another party (MailChimp), by signing up for MailChimp, I have asked them to collect and hold that data for my use. MailChimp is responsible for their part.
GDPR isn’t just about holding the information but USING it as well. If a person uses that information to send out blog posts, newsletters, etc., under GDPR a person is telling their subscribers that they will use their information in the manner in which they said they would when they collected it and nothing else.
So, if a subscriber says that they want to receive my blog posts via email, that’s ALL I can do with their info. I can’t send them an email on a book that is on sale this week even if I know they would be interested. They didn’t give me permission to do that. If someone signs up for my newsletter, I can’t send them my blog posts.
So if a person USES, in anyway, that information collected and being held for them, they MUST be GDPR compliant for any subscribers in those countries under the GDPR law. The U.S. might not be under the law right now, but the day is coming, and I hope it comes real soon.
I have somehow ended up on several email lists that I have no clue how I got there. One day, I just started receiving regular emails. I want control on how others use my information. This law is supposed to help that.
I’m hoping this GDPR and others like it in the future will cut down on the volume of real spam email. I believe GDPR will give authorities the needed laws to prosecute the huge spammers who blast me with dozens of emails daily and to help curb the blatant spam.
On my emailing list provider, I will be merging my two email lists into one with segments for the different areas that people optin to. I hope when I merge them, I don’t lose people who already reconsented. I contemplated whether to merge them first then send the reconsent email or vise versa. But since they were for two different things, I opted for reconsent then I’ll merge.
In gaining reconsent, I and others will lose some of our subscribers, but the ones who find benefit in receiving my emails, will likely stick around. The choice belongs to each person, and I support individuals’ right to choose for themselves.
This whole thing is a huge hassle, but I’m glad for it. I’m hoping that it helps all of us as we use and navigate the Internet so we are all better protected.
Nothing is perfect, but we have to at least try.
COMING SOON
THE WIDOW'S PLIGHT ~ A sweet historical romance that will tug at your heart. This is book 1 in the Quilting Circle series.Washington State, 1893
When Lily Lexington Bremmer arrives in Kamola with her young son, she’s reluctant to join the social center of her new community, the quilting circle, but the friendly ladies pull her in. She begins piecing a sunshine and shadows quilt because it mirrors her life. She has a secret that lurks in the shadows and hopes it doesn’t come out into the light. Dark places in her past are best forgotten, but her new life is full of sunshine. Will her secrets cast shadows on her bright future?
Widower Edric Hammond and his father are doing their best to raise his two young daughters. He meets Lily and her son when they arrive in town and helps her find a job and a place to live. Lily resists Edric’s charms at first but finds herself falling in love with this kind, gentle man and his two darling daughters. Lily has stolen his heart with her first warm smile, but he’s cautious about bringing another woman into his girls’ lives due to the harshness of their own mother.
Can Edric forgive Lily her past to take hold of a promising chance at love?THE WIDOW'S PLIGHT is now available for pre-order at only $2.99--the low price for pre-orders...later it will go up. A sweet historical romance that will tug at your heart. This book releases in ebook on July 1, and will be out in paperback by mid-June.
“Holly & Ivy,”my #HistoricalRomance novella in A BOUQUET OF BRIDES COLLECTION, takes place in 1890, in Washington State. It’s about a young woman who accompanies her impetuous younger sister on her trip across the country to be a Christmas mail-order bride and is helped by a gallant stranger. #BouquetOfBrides
A doctor or an Amish wife? She can choose to be only one…Kathleen Yoder comes home after fourteen years in the Englisher world. Practicing medicine means sacrifice—no Amish man will want a doctor for a wife. Widowed Noah Lambright offers a cottage as her new clinic, seeing how much Kathleen’s skills can help their community. But as their friendship deepens, could love and family become more than a forbidden dream?
#ChristianRomance #HistoricalRomance #Romance
MARY DAVIS is a bestselling, award-winning novelist of over two dozen titles in both historical and contemporary themes. She has five titles releasing in 2018; "Holly & Ivy" in A Bouquet of Brides Collection in January, Courting Her Amish Heart in March, The Widow’s Plight in July, Courting Her Secret Heart September, & “Zola’s Cross-Country Adventure” in MISSAdventure Brides Collection in December. She is a member of ACFW and active in critique groups.
Mary lives in the Pacific Northwest with her husband of over thirty-three years and two cats. She has three adult children and one incredibly adorable grandchild. Find her online at:
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