Ignoring This Might Be The Worst Decision In Your Business This Year
Now that I’ve Got Your Attention, it’s Time to Talk About the Problem…
EVERY WEBSITE, INCLUDING YOURS, NEEDS TO BE GDPR COMPLIANT ON OR BEFORE MAY 25TH, 2018!
GDPR (General Data Protection Regulation) is a law passed by the EU (European Union) that mandates every website to follow certain requirements related to personal privacy as well as who and how you are using that information. The fine for violating these requirements is as high as $20 million. It’s that crazy! Yeah! Not only that, you might even be barred from serving any customer from EU ever again.
By the way, this explains why your inbox has exploded with email from many of the people you have done business with saying that they have updated their Terms and Privacy policies. Now you know.
There is trouble brewing in the online world, and it will be here on May 25th, 2018.
This trouble is called GDPR and it is not fake news.
If you want to read lots of fine print, here is a good explanation from the team at IBM.
I must admit that I had blown this all off up until recently. Traffic and sales that I receive from customers outside North America make up less than 19% of my business. So I thought fine, go ahead and sue me! I’m small potatoes in the world of online, so no one would bother hassling me. I use double opt-in for all my email address collecting so I should be fine.
NOT THE CASE! I learned that if you are found in violation, they can file a claim with your payment processor, or even your site hosting company and shut down your account and/or service. That caught my attention.
I am not an attorney, but I really don’t want to deal with this crap in my business. I had been considering blocking all visitors from the EU. Then I considered that 19% adds up to a significant amount, and the business from those geographies are on an upward trend, so decided that blocking EU viewers is not smart.
So, you only have a blog – are you still required to comply? Most likely. Are you using Google Analytics, email signups? Are you using Tracking pixels? If so, then GDPR is going to be in play.
I have found an effective solution and purchased for my own websites. I am in the process of installing this brand-new WordPress Plugin that takes care of seven key requirements of GDPR. Here is the link to this plugin.
I cannot explain all the details here because I am not an attorney nor an expert in GDPR regulations.
What I do know is that I cannot afford to have my site shut down, my payment processor canceled or deal with all of the politicians creating this massive amount of red tape.
If you want to learn more about all this, and what this WordPress plugin can do to help, CLICK HERE to read all the details and purchase the plugin.
If, after you have read all about the capabilities and you would rather not deal with it all, one additional option available is to select to block/prevent any EU traffic from even accessing your website. I considered that option but realized that whether I like it or not, FilltheFunnel is a global company, but then again aren’t we all?
If you have questions or feedback that might be helpful, please add it below in the comments section at the bottom of the page.
Now off to understand the next major headache coming to all of us that use WordPress in our business – Gutenberg is very, very close. I will be sharing what I have learned about this significant change to the platform that powers up to 40% of the world’s websites early next week.
Until then, tell me what you think about all these regulations and requirements in comments below.