For reasons unknown to me, today feels like Christmas. The deadline to become GDPR compliant ended at 11:59 last night and less than half a day into the first day, news is spilling out like lava. Last night, GDPR information webpages were going kaput as companies worldwide crashed them in their last minute attempts to gauge whether or not they were GDPR ready. Guess what? They probably weren’t.
Regulators can hit companies with fines around $23.5 million, and privacy activists are already lining big tech companies on the chopping block. On the first day, thanks to Austrian privacy activist Max Schrems, who has been a thorn in Facebook’s side for years, Facebook and Google were facing almost $9 billion worth of GDPR lawsuits.
For companies who aren’t GDPR ready, it appears they’ve simply shut the doors on EU users. Such is the case for Pinterest’s news-clipping service, who announced that it will bar EU citizens from using the platform until further notice.
According to a Pinterest spokesperson, the blockade is a temporary measure and the company intends to “restore access as soon as possible”.
“I know that it was too short notice,” tweeted the service’s chief Brian Donohue. “I underestimated the scope of work and it was not possible to complete by the deadline, this was the required alternative.” Of course he underestimated GDPR. My guess is that many companies have, maybe even your company.
In breaking news, Tronc, the owner of major news outlets including the Los Angeles Times and New York Daily News has closed its entire portfolio of websites in European countries, and complaints have already been filed against Facebook, Google, Instagram, and WhatsApp.
Nobody is ready (including the regulators), say some sources. Fortunately, we have plenty of articles and resources to get you caught up on what to do over the next week.
