General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) is a new law set in the EU to regulate how companies collect and store the data of the EU citizens [1]. This regulation was implemented to protect EU citizens from companies abusing the data the collected from their users. The reason the GDPR was implemented is due to egregious business practices such as the Facebook Data scandal in 2018. It was found that Facebook was collecting data and sharing it with advertising companies that was not specifically stated in their terms and services [2]. Some of the data was collected were from the private messages of the Facebook users. Advertisers would then send targeted ads to the people who the data belonged to. Facebooks also shared the data with such companies as Google, Yahoo, Netflix, and others who also collected data on their users. This led to Facebook benefiting from the shared pool of data by targeting their users with advertisements for their paid services. This is just one of the many examples of why regulation such as the GDPR is needed to stop companies from using people’s data in egregious ways.
[1] Palmer, Danny. “What Is GDPR? Everything You Need to Know about the New General Data Protection Regulations.’ ZDNet, ZDNet, 23 May 2019, www.zdnet.com/article/gdpr-an-executive-guide-to-what-you-need-to-know/.
[2] Blumenthal, Eli. “Facebook’s Latest Privacy Scandal: What We Know about the Company’s Handling of User Data.’ USA Today, Gannett Satellite Information Network, 19 Dec. 2018, www.usatoday.com/story/tech/2018/12/19/facebooks-latest-privacy-scandal-what-we-know-now/2361257002/.