Which is odd, because isn’t the point of GDPR that you only hold the data necessary for the purposes you’ve outlined when collecting it?
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I’m enjoying all the emails I’m getting as well. Tower Hamlets, who I haven’t heard from in years, have emailed me multiple times - my only interest was in access to their libraries* when I worked in Canary Wharf (left in 2013). Got an email from Flying Nun’s record store, which is idiotic - like they can’t match my email address with my physical address and work out I’m one of their New Zealand customers, not in the EU?
Lots of stuff from things I never signed up for (probably the guy in Canada who is convinced that my address is his).
*Like fuck am I calling them Idea Stores you ignoble cockwombles.
I assume it’s because they deal with the EU so they can’t really cherrypick how they approach this. What if you move to the EU and then they’re breaking the law because they don’t have your consent on records?
Or it may simply be that the best way to cover your arse is apply the most stringent methods to all customers. In general I’d imagine people outside the EU would be happy to have this stuff taken account of.
True, I guess if I moved, but didn’t order anything, they wouldn’t know I’d moved, and so might not be compliant. It’s definitely cover your arse, which I guess is fine, I can’t really complain if people are being more strict about privacy and permission rather than less.
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General GDPR Regulations
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Recently I’ve been getting job search emails from sites I’ve never signed up for. some of which say ‘xxx said you were looking for xxx’. does that mean they’ve been giving away emails to other people bother GDPR hits and hoping that works? And of course I haven’t had GDPR emails from these new sites.
I guess when you signed up for the original they may have told you (in small print) that they would share your info with carefully chosen partners or whatever.
Yeah, I guess the strange thing is it would have been years ago that I signed up and have only started getting any of these emails in the last couple of days.
Yeah they’re probably trying to get you on board before GDPR, despite the fact it doesn’t make much difference. If they can’t show your obvious consent now (and I doubt they can), then they shouldn’t be contacting you.
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my old undergrad supervisor who’s a really nice man has me on this admittedly pretty spammy list of job and research opportunities in my field. he just sent the most lovely little GDPR email ever where he said people could opt in to them in the future, while acknowledging that it was mostly former students on the list who never bothered asking him to stop. he signed off by wishing that everyone was well and happy, it was really quite lovely 
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I’ve had well over 100 emails this week.
Been quite cathartic actually unsubscribing to loads of stuff, even if in most cases it wasn’t necessary.
A band whose website I run had a double opt in through a form, and we never collected emails at gigs. So we’ve just bunged the list on Mailchimp, reminded people how they signed up, and pointed out that every mailout sent now has an opt out. Then I deleted their email addresses off our server and updated the form on the website to point to the new mailing list. Job done, no need for nuclear option.
You’re in a very strong position of always having a double opt-in. Most large B2C organisations have been using pre-ticked boxes on transaction pages for years as that was standard practice for maximising your lists.
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Love the optimism of the ATP opt in email. As if they’re ever going to have a reason to contact anyone in the future.
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I’m 50% appalled and 50% wish I’d thought of that myself.
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Have they emailed you at all about GDPR before sending this?
I know lots of charities have sent post/telephoned supporters for opt-in after emailing and getting no response. It’s being seen as an opportunity to almost start from scratch and make sure everything’s up to date, which might not be a bad thing a lot of charity databases have been a hot mess of consent variations over the past few years.
My account with Unroll.me was terminated because they didn’t update their terms of services for EU users in time. Odd.
Someone just shared this round at work.
It’s the worst thing I’ve ever seen. Don’t say I didn’t warn you.
