Monthly Archives May 2018

US companies are behind the curve on understanding how GDPR impacts their businesses

There’s an eerie lack of awareness about the impact of the GDPR on US businesses that target consumers in the European Union. According to recent research by the IAPP, complexity of laws, inadequate budget and too little time combined with the lack of qualified and trained staff have conspired to perpetuate this lack of readiness by US companies.

Here in Europe, many companies and organisations have been bracing themselves for the biggest shake-up in data protection, privacy and security for over two decades that’s fully effective from 25 May 2018 – in 13 days’ time.

I’ve been in conversations with senior US-executives who’ve boldly told me that the “GDPR doesn’t apply to ...

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Enough already? Fed up with GDPR emails asking for your consent?

You bet!

This is an all-out attack by the zombies! They follow other zombies by sending us mindless emails saying this kind of crap:

“We’re committed to managing and safeguarding the information you give us when looking for a job. CLICK HERE TO STAY SIGNED UP.”

Or how about this:

“LET’S STAY IN TOUCH. Did you know? New privacy laws come in to effect on 25 May. This landmark new law is designed to improve your privacy rights. This is great news for online shoppers, so if you enjoy getting our promotional emails, just click below…”

Or this:

“We don’t want to lose you, so please take action NOW”

STOP! THINK! LEARN!

These emails are pointless!

In the UK, it’...

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Dot Gone! The end of the road for Whois

It’s the end of the road – and the end of an era – for the Whois service as its US-based parent ICANN fails to find a solution to continue the service that isn’t a breach of the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR).

According to its Wikipedia entry, Whois is a ‘query and response protocol that’s widely used for querying databases that store the registered users or assignees of anInternet resource, such as a domain name, an IP address block, or an autonomous system, but is also used for a wider range of other information. The protocol stores and delivers database content in a human-readable format.’

The Whois system publishes the name, address and tele...

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End of Cambridge Analytica as it puts itself into voluntary liquidation

In a meeting just before 1300 (GMT) today, Wednesday 2 May, staff at data agency Cambridge Analytica were told that it was putting itself into voluntary liquidation.

For the BBC news report: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-43985186

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