Yahoo Rocketmail newly Oath not GDPR compliant, can you spot why?
If Yahoo can get away with a farce like this then why should we worry with our websites! Everyone had been confused on gdpr, there had been so much conflicting advice out there by people trying to sell this or that plugin and clearly bad legal advice by people who don't use websites. However, someone as big as Yahoo email provider can afford a good legal team to advise them, and we are long enough into this now to see how things are going so this move to force to you accept their 'access to your device' when you've actually signed up to email provider services is more than a bit sneaky, let's take a closer look at how they are breaking GDPR compliance while looking like they are complying:
1. We are allowed what is required for proper functioning of our websites and services
So I'm trying to log onto my email this morning and I'm being told they 'need' my consent to access my device and data for erm, not for their email service, but what appears to be their presonal tailored ads service which actually is not essential to the running of an email service - that is not what I signed up for, I'm already dependent on them for emails after these years and a bit of a hurdle right now as I seem locked out of my email unless I take it today.
2. Google Analytics and Location
There's division on this, some people go in and remove location from GA on the back end, some people say it would break the internet. Either way I think that is google's problem when it comes to 'privacy by design' and note there are two different uses of location here - one for analysing traffic on websites and one for spamming our ass with tailored traffic as we try to read our email, and they are trying to force our permission on that in multiple ways, again going against GDPR.
Yahoo asking my permission to actually use that location data to sell me stuff while I'm just trying to read my email is way different than how we normally use GA to analyse our traffic. Except for people who use AdSense, that's a can of worms I'm not really looking at here except in so far as I'm trying to access my email without being forced to sign up or give away data here at Yahoo, now called Oath.
3. They want to 'understand my interests' and pass that data on to other groups
Sinister, would have thought that was one of the plusses of GDPR, no profiling! Notice they have introduced all this with 'we need' it, no actually you signed me up for free email and you should be providing email, it's a bit late now to say btw there's strings and we need to get in your head...I cannot access my email today!!
4. A False nod to 'Manage Options'
Good luck trying to do that! They've made it deliberately confusing and nigh impossible to opt out. Under GDPR people were to have a clear choice AND to be able to access the websites and services without agreeing to hand over data. Now, there is a difference between sensitive and non-sensitive data which people tend to forget however they way they've described things here it's a big fat no from me, I'm opting out.
Relevant Ads?
That's an interesting concept in itself, surely it's only relevant if I'm shopping in the first place, which I'm not. As for Yahoo, I've tried to complain to them in the past for the shock jock news stories they push in my face every time I try to log into my email, voyeurism at its worst with no respect to the victims of vile crimes - do I trust these people with sensitive data to target me with 'relevant' ads, no, absolutely not.
**Just give me a giant big button that says I Don't Accept right there beside your I Accept button, if you are sincere about giving us a choice here.**
Relevance for us as Affiliate Marketers?
See the privacy policy in the templates in SiteContent, it's saying we do not track or profile people the way Yahoo/Oath is trying to do here, we are not to be tarred with the same brush. Though I understand there's more rules for those using adsense, I don't use it.
I've written a bunch of blogs on GDPR compliance in the past which you can find scrolling down my blog list, as have some other people in here.
Mary
Recent Comments
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yes Alan, but I'll still likely have to click accept to get into my email, best I can do is call them out and let off some steam, though if anything comes up for us and our websites later we'll be ready for them!
...that pic is what they threw at us trying to log into email today!
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Hey Mary,
Can you say WHY ARE YOU CONFUSING ME YAHOO!!!
LOL! last time I tried speaking to them there was no real way to find them ;)