GDPR Coming to a Site Near You

Buckle up for some changes around the blog. Hopefully not too many, but GDPR goes active near the end of May, and because I cannot guarantee that an EU citizen isn’t reading my site from a cellphone in Detroit, I must comply or be fined a minimum (!) of 2 million Euros. You may have already noticed the annoying checkbox on the comment form, which (by law) cannot be checked by default. That’s called “opt out” and is a no-no. There will also, soon, be an obnoxious popup which will require you to sign over your personal data, mother’s maiden name, estate, and first-born child to me. Your data will still be used nefariously by the advertisers on my site, except now there will be record of you agreeing to it. Thankfully, the popup will save a cookie so you only have to give me permission to peer into your personal life once a year, give or take.

Honestly, I hope that the vast majority of you choose not to check the box, because I could do with a long vacation sabbatical. Also, even with all of these precautions there is nothing stopping the EU from claiming that my efforts don’t fulfill the requirements. And, since I do not employ a multi-million-dollar legal team, I would be unable to fight the aforementioned 2 million Euro penalty. I very seriously considered taking down the blog when I learned the full impact of the law – and you should probably expect some of your favorite bloggers to throw in the towel as well. I’ll keep chugging along, though, so you can all think of me when I’m in debtors prison for life because I forgot about a third-party cookie set by a WordPress plugin. Or something. Enjoy. -SN

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  • I’m sorry Scotch Noob. That’s really difficult to deal with, especially since it seems like you’re just running this site for fun. I’ve commented harshly on the another post of yours, but please believe me when I say that I really, really appreciate your site. Thank you for all you do.