Cleanzine: your weekly cleaning and hygiene industry newsletter 18th April 2024 Issue no. 1110
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Thank goodness it’s almost over!
Yes – the General Data Protection Regulations finally come into force tomorrow which means that my inbox will no longer be engulfed by a multitude of emails threatening that if I don’t ‘opt in’, I’ll be eliminated from the sender’s database forever.
Bearing in mind that I’m a journalist and thus rely on being on people’s databases, the threat of not responding to these emails is a real one. I’ve had, literally, hundreds of them over recent weeks and the time and effort it’s taken to deal with them is ridiculous. The good ones (sadly not enough of them) tell me to ignore them if I want to stay subscribed; the bad ones force me to fill out my details all over again.
One very worried public relations professional I know, confessed that she wished she’d thought a bit longer over how she was going to handle the regulations. She sent out an email to her entire database asking people to opt-in if they wanted to continue receiving her releases. As of Tuesday, only 11 people had responded – and because she’s asked the question, she needs to abide by the answers (or lack of them).
I can see why the regulations might need tightening up but (and probably like many readers) I’ve not checked the details of what I’m opting into. I’ve stopped reading the preamble and haven’t checked what precedes the boxes I’ve ended up ticking. Goodness knows what I might have signed up to!
I’ve also received a huge number of these emails from companies that are completely alien to me… I’ve come to the conclusion that some clever (but unscrupulous) marketeers have used GDPR to expand their ‘fully-requested’ lists.
Am I the only one who thinks that this whole GDPR thing could have been thought through a little better, and that we’d at least have been advised on the best way of handling our databases?
And while I’m on the subject, if you no longer wish to keep receiving Cleanzine, the ‘unsubscribe’ link is at the foot of every broadcast. I hope, of course, that you decide not to use it…
Please get in touch either by emailing me or posting a comment on our Facebook page www.facebook.com/Cleanzine
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Yours,
24th May 2018