Why Content Marketing Is The Solution To GDPR
On the 25th May 2018, the EU General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) comes into full effect after years in the making. The GDPR is the EU’s latest rewrite of its data privacy laws. Its impact will be felt by organizations across the globe, applying to everyone regardless of whether the data has been captured and analyzed inside or outside of the EU. This has had tech giants up in arms at what they perceive to be a war on their power, with the majority making billions from targeting ads using machine learning techniques.
Exactly what it means for the average company has been a little less well documented. Essentially, the terms of GDPR are such that if a company has a single EU customer on their databases (and, realistically, very few won’t) then they must adhere to GDPR. What this will mean, then, is that companies will adopt GDPR practices as standard to avoid any complications, whether they are in Europe or not. Having said that, a worrying lack of companies worldwide are reportedly aware that they will be affected by the regulation. According to a survey from NTT Security, only 40% of organizations globally believe they will be affected by the change, and 33% of respondents don’t even know where their data is physically stored. It’ll be a time of major upheaval for data teams across the world, though, so businesses will do well to get a handle on it before it takes effect.
The biggest facet of GDPR as far as marketers are concerned is that, as of May, marketing lists will need to be opt-in. This has significant ramifications for the entire industry, with databases needing to be cleansed and reviewed to ensure that it can be proven that every name on the list opted in wilfully, whether the name is being used for legitimate purposes, and that the information is accurate.
