The Sky Is Falling--GDPR

Yesterday, as I was wading through all the requirements and various websites, a line from an old country music song popped into my brain, “Gloom, despair, agony on end…” That’s what yesterday was.

What’s Uh Happening, Hot Stuff?

Just about every author I know who maintains a subscription mailing list has been inundated with information about the General Data Protection Regulation, commonly known as GDPR.

Privately I added an adjective in front of GDPR that indicates my general state of disgruntlement as I tried to figure out what the heck I needed to actually do about this regulation that is focused on the rights of citizens living in a country that is part of the European Union.

If you just said, “Huh?” you know exactly how we all feel.

GDPR Apocolypse

Apparently, the EU is out to make sure that all of the citizens under them never receive an email without having subscribed AND confirmed the subscription.

They also want their citizens to understand their rights to privacy to protect them from having their data used in a way they were not advised about.

What all this means is that I spent an entire day figuring out a Privacy Policy and a Cookie Policy–as if I have any control over what data is automatically gathered by software bots since my blog is hosted by Blogger and my website is hosted by Authors Guild.

Just In Case You Want To Know

Skip over this if you’re already bored to tears.

What is GDPR? What does it mean? The General Data Protection Regulation is a regulation on data protection and privacy for all people living in a European Union country.

The purpose of it is to give EU residents control over their personal data and how it can be collected and processed. Uh, privacy? Hasn’t that ship already sailed for everyone on the planet?

Still Saying, “Huh?”

Me too. However, since it does no good to try to fight city hall or the EU, I placed a Privacy Policy on my blog (see the tab on the menu bar) and website yesterday and linked one to BookFunnel which hosts my free book that’s a welcome gift for Mailing List subscribers.

By Friday, I’ll have a Cookie Policy up–for whatever it’s worth since I don’t actually have any control over that. The Cookie Policy isn’t required yet, but people who know far more than I about all this says it will be in the near future.

I’m also having to change the wording on my Mailing List signup. I can’t use the text, “sign up for my mailing list and receive a free ebook.” Well, that sentence is in the front and back of every published book I have online. So guess what I’ll be doing in a few days? Yep, editing every single book and uploading again. Of course, that won’t change the books that are already out there.

Takeaway Truth

I’m a writer. All I want to do is write, darn it! How rare it is to have a week–heck, a day–devoted primarily to writing. *sigh*