About a year from now, we could be watching the Ad Tech Apocalypse.
That’s when the European Union’s GDPR (General Data Protection Regulation) goes into effect.
It requires that consumers provide explicit consent for the use of their personal data, which includes their online behavior. It applies to marketing directed at EU citizens, wherever they may be, and it provides for significant penalties.
If it’s enforced, brands and consumers in Europe are likely to be profoundly affected. But, since GDPR applies to EU citizens wherever they are, it could also seriously impact brands and consumers in the US and elsewhere.
“GDPR will blow things up,” marketing researcher and writer Doc Searls told me.
“I’m scratching my head [as to] why people aren’t more panicked,” Gigya SVP Jason Rose said.
GDPR could “kill some parts of marketing” such as retargeting, IDC analyst Gerald Murray predicted.
And it’s not just that GDPR could change the key foundations of modern digital marketing. In a post-GDPR landscape, the user experience could be a nightmare.
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