We need to talk about European privacy law. Wait, no, come back! Don’t close your email! It’s important: This May, the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) will force companies that do business in the EU to ensure users know, understand, can access, and consent to the data collected about them—no fine print, no hidden checkboxes. And because Facebook, Google, and others aren’t going to create separate systems for their EU and non-EU user bases, Stateside users are going to get a lot more privacy options too.
The specter of GDPR is already changing how brazen tech giants are about hoovering up your data from every corner of the web. Google has stopped mining your Gmail to personalize ads and made its privacy dashboard more user-friendly. Facebook announced a privacy dashboard of its own (though it has yet to deliver). But that isn’t enough. This is the time to renegotiate your relationships with your data and with tech companies by learning why you’re seeing a particular ad, and who gets to see your name, your IP address, the location of your home. “The past year has shown how the same personal data has been weaponized to suppress minority voters, radicalize young white men, exploit political beliefs to sow division, and possibly swing elections,” writes senior business reporter Nitasha Tiku. “The need for transparency and accountability is more vital than ever.”

Sourced through Scoop.it from: links.newsletters.wired.com