NEWSLETTER #116 / May 27, 2018
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SIMPLIFIERS AND COMPLICATORS
In the short space of ten days, the five most dreaded words in the English language have become "Our Privacy Policy Has Changed."
Upon seeing these words, any sensible person immediately lurches for the delete key for fear that they might accidentally open the email and have their brains fall out.
This, of course, is all due to the GDPR. The purpose of the GDPR can be expressed in one simple sentence: You may not collect personal private information about people without their express consent. This is a noble and admirable objective. But in the typical fashion of lawyers, regulators, and politicians it has been turned into a 350-page nightmare of indecipherable language, contradictory rules, and wormholes of vagary.
The consequence of all this is that the corrupt and dangerous online ad industry is winning the first round in the PR war with the EU.
The problem: Advertisers know how to simplify but regulators can complicate the shit out of a grilled cheese sandwich. And the surest way to turn people off is to confuse them.
This whole project needed copywriters not lawyers. I guarantee that if Dave Trott, George Tannenbaum, or Rich Siegel had written the GDPR it would be...
- Less than one page
- Far more understandable
- Far more legally unambiguous
Sadly, it is currently a pig's breakfast that will be fought over and litigated for years. Instead of taking one bite at a time, the EU is trying to eat a burrito mejor in one gulp.
To conform to the GDPR, online marketers and media are required to clarify their privacy policies. But the exact opposite is happening. Privacy policies are becoming pages and pages of longer, more confusing, and less transparent jargon-filled flapdoodle.
In an effort to create a simple and transparent privacy policy, I published the following dumbass blogger version of a privacy statekent a few weeks ago on my blog. This could easily replace most of the gibberish currently being served up .
Of course, nothing like this will ever appear because it is too clear and transparent. Instead, under the cover of the convoluted intricacies of the GDPR, the industry will continue to blind us with complications.
Yes, I’m An Idiot, Too
According to published reports, some companies have hundreds of people and are spending 50 million dollars working on GDPR compliance. Here at Type A Group Global Headquarters we have the entire legal and IT team (my two dogs and a Mr. Coffee machine) working on this. I’ve gotten exactly nowhere.
Here’s what I think I know. Among the subscribers to this newsletter, there are tens of millions who are EU residents... okay, maybe a couple of thousand. This means that the newsletter has to meet certain GDPR criteria regarding the collection of data about y'alls.
I collect zero data.
But here’s the rub. The platform that the newsletter is built on (Campaign Monitor) does collect data. I believe this makes me responsible for doing something other than whining. But it's hard to figure out what.
I have no idea what they do with this data. They claim they are clean. I can’t vouch for that. For all I know they could be selling it to Harvey Weinstein.
But, for your benefit, here's the data I know they collect:
- Your email address (obviously they have to have it to send out the newsletter)
- The city that the IP opening the newsletter is located in
- The time you open the newsletter
- The links you click in the newsletter
I have no idea why they need to know anything other than your email address, which I presume you have voluntarily provided otherwise you wouldn't be getting this. I guess they think that other stuff is useful to me. Which it is not. .
If any of this freaks you out, please unsubscribe. I promise I will not be hurt.
By the way, I have the same problem with my blog and my website. I collect and process zero data (and make zero money) from them, but the platforms they are built on probably do. I’m going to cross my fingers and hope that the Bozos of Brussels are more interested in Google and Facebook than they are in me.
Speaking Of Simplicity...
One online security expert says, "Online advertising is the new digital cancer." In order to protect yourself from the problems of tracking in your browser, read this clear and simple explanation and follow the simple guidelines. It will take you very little time.
And In Other News...
Because I spent so much time yapping about GDPR I didn't have time to write about a few other interesting stories this week. So I've provided links...
- The GDPR lawsuits have begun as one privacy group is already suing Google and Facebook.
- The Amazon Echo secretly recorded a woman's private conversation and then sent it to someone else.
- An Instagram account called Diet Madison Avenue was shut down late this week after a high level ad exec filed a lawsuit against the account for defamation. The site is famous for publishing anonymous accusations of sexual harassment. Instagram is owned by Facebook.
By the way, the very first piece I ever wrote for an advertising trade publication a thousand years ago (it was Adweek, but in those days it was called MAC) was titled Simplifiers And Complicators. Plus ça change...
