The snowstorm of emails asking your permission to stay on mailing lists has finally abated. If you, like me, have also noticed that some of the websites you previously visited are no longer there, that’s also because of GDPR – the General Data Protection Regulation. Mind you, it hasnt stopped me receiving spam about how I can make a fortune from bitchain, or whatever it is (I never read them.)

GDPR is the EU law which will make it more difficult for companies like Facebook, to weaponise your personal data. Sadly it may have been too late to prevent your data from being used to sway the result of the EU Referendum and the US election, which saw President Trump elected.

I for one am a great supporter of it, and of what it illustrates. Which is this.

The EU creates laws to protect its citizens. That is a good thing. Some might argue that the GDPR is just another unnecessary piece of Red Tape – though in truth I have heard few of those siren calls that we all come to expect emanating from the free-market de-regulatory nexus. Perhaps they are waiting to pop out today.

If you signed up to receive an email telling you I have written a new blog, I have not asked for your permission to continue to contact you when I write that blog. This is because I had to read quite a lot about the GDPR recently  – mainly because I wanted to make sure People Need Nature complied with the new law. And it seemed to me that an awful lot of organisations, mostly charities, were panicking and asking people to resubscribe unnecessarily.

This blog is a purely personal matter, there is no money involved and no organisation. It’s literally me (and some guest bloggers) writing about stuff I’m interested in – I’m not providing any form of service and there is no contract between me and you. You’re here because you want to be. And you can unsubscribe from the mailing list any time you want to.

If you’re one of the fantastic people who leave comments on here, then, again, that’s your choice. And if you want all your comments erased now or any time in the future, just let me know and I’ll remove all traces of you from my blog. I don’t do anything with your data, and I won’t do anything with it in the future. It’s saved here on wordpress so you don’t have to fill in your details each time you leave a comment.

Thanks very much for reading this blog, and all the other ones.