Ask HN: Why have I received a lot of Privacy Policy updates

[anh79]

Recently I have received a lot of Privacy Policy updates from cloud services: twitter, google, gitlab, github, slack, etc. Very noisy IMHO.

I don't really know if I should spend time to learn new updates. Should the service provide some `diff`? Is my account closed if I don't read/learn new policy? Is new update compatible with old ones? bla bla whatever, the question is why these services are sending updates almost at the same time/?

What's wrong with them, or my account(s)?

[18nleung]

Yesterday, a sweeping new EU privacy regulation called the GDPR (General Data Privacy Regulation) came into effect, imposing a whole bunch of new data-privacy requirements on companies which do business with EU citizens.

Since almost all large cloud services are international, many have simply done a blanket update to their privacy policies and terms of service to comply with the law for all of their customers, regardless of nationality. That's why you've been receiving emails lately.

For the most part, not much will change with your day-to-day interactions with these websites, but if they didn't provide it before, you can probably now submit a request for all the data they have on you and submit a request to have your information completely deleted. There's a whole bunch of other rights, too - in fact, you can read the full text of the law here: https://gdpr-info.eu/

[schoen]

It's because of the entry into force today of the GDPR: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_Data_Protection_Regula...