GDPR over and over again, Shopify launches a comm tool, EU needs a digital single market
How to Prepare Your Google Analytics Account for GDPR
Google recently sent out an email to all their analytics admins about GDPR. The purpose of this email was to introduce product updates that will help us get ready for data privacy compliance. One of the product updates Google is introducing is data retention control. This feature will allow you to manage how long Google stores your user data on Google’s servers. Data retention control will go into effect in your account the same day GDPR launches, May 25th.
The current default for data retention is 26 months. But you can select to retain your user data for a shorter or longer period. Google has also introduced a user deletion tool. This tool will allow you to remove users’ Client IDs, User IDs, or App Instance IDs from your analytics data. When a user opts out of tracking, you’ll use this tool to remove their data.
→ Read more at JeffAlytics.com
What kind of personal data are collected by online stores?
Whether we are talking about sales data, billing data or employee information, to comply with GDPR, online stores need to make sure that they use the data for a clear, non-abusive purpose. Starting May 25, 2018, e-commerce businesses will be required to keep track of personal data processing activities, erase them at the request of individuals and, in the case of large stores, even nominate a Data Protection Officer (DPO).
With regard to online stores, the main personal data they collect are the data of customers who buy a product or service (used for contract execution but sometimes also for marketing), but also personal data of employees.
Guidelines on transparency under GDPR
Transparency is an overarching obligation under the GDPR applying to three central areas: (1) the provision of information to data subjects related to fair processing; (2) how data controllers communicate with data subjects in relation to their rights under the GDPR; and (3) how data controllers facilitate the exercise by data subjects of their rights.
A data controller should ensure that it is compliant with its transparency obligations as of 25 May 2018. This means that data controllers should revisit all information provided to data subjects on processing of their personal data (for example in privacy statements/ notices etc.) to ensure that they adhere to the requirements in relation to transparency. Where changes or additions are made to such information, controllers should make it clear to data subjects that these changes have been effected in order to comply with the GDPR.
→ Read the guide from WP29 (PDF)
Shopify announces free customer communication and targeting tool
Shopify announced a new app to help its ecommerce customers communicate directly with their customers in a unified messaging tool. Shopify Ping is a free mobile workspace for Shopify merchants that brings together customer conversations, marketing workflows, and more in a single iOS app. That means it is opening up a free integrated messaging platform for Shopify users to communicate directly with customers and (maybe) give them what they want when they want it, which is of course the goal of online retailers.
The beauty of this approach is that it brings together all the communications from many of the major messaging platforms including messages from Facebook Messenger, Rep.ai and Chatkit out of the box with more coming down the road as the product develops further beyond the early release announced.
Europe needs Digital Single Market to boost its digital performance
The European Commission is publishing the results of the 2018 Digital Economy and Society Index (DESI), a tool which monitors the performance of Member States in digital connectivity, digital skills online activity, the digitisation of businesses and digital public services. According to it, the EU is getting more digital, but progress remains insufficient for Europe to catch up with global leaders and to reduce differences across Member States. This calls for a quick completion of the Digital Single Market and increased investments in digital economy and society.
Over the past year, the EU continued to improve its digital performance and the gap between the most and the least digital countries slightly narrowed (from 36 points to 34 points). Denmark, Sweden, Finland and the Netherlands scored the highest ratings in DESI 2018 and are among the global leaders in digitalisation. They are followed by Luxembourg, Ireland, the UK, Belgium and Estonia. Ireland, Cyprus and Spain progressed the most (by more than 15 points) over the last four years. However, some other EU countries still have a long way to go and the EU as a whole needs to improve to be competitive on the global stage.
