The General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) is more popular than Kanye West.

If you’re on Twitter — or pay any attention to celebrity gossip — you’re probably familiar with Kanye West and his Twitter rants over the last month.

You probably don’t believe me when I say GDPR is more popular than Kanye West. But look at this Google Trends comparison from May 17 to 24, 2018!

I’m not going to explain what your business needs to do to comply with GDPR (it’s pretty complex, and I’m no lawyer!). Instead, I want to talk about why GDPR is ultimately a good thing for both consumers and businesses.

What Is GDPR?

Over the past few weeks, you’ve probably received a number of emails from businesses notifying you they’ve updated their privacy policy. That’s their attempt to comply with GDPR.

GDPR is a regulation in EU law on data protection and privacy for all individuals within the EU and the European Economic Area. Any business holding personal data of EU customers or businesses is subject to GDPR penalties.

Why Is GDPR Good for Consumers?

I think we all can agree that spam emails stink. Our inboxes are full enough, right?

What if the only emails we ever received were those we explicitly opted in to? I would be more likely to open and interact with emails — and less likely to delete emails without ever opening them.

GDPR means less spam and less sharing of personal data by companies. Those are good things for us consumers!

Why Is GDPR Good for Businesses?

Many marketers like myself were worried when we heard the news of GDPR. How will our email marketing remain effective?

But as I’ve learned more about it, I’ve started to realize the benefits of GDPR.

If our email lists are filled with people who actually want to receive emails from us, we will have higher open rates, click rates, and conversions. We can put more focus on those people who truly have interest and are viable prospects.

All of these privacy updates have given businesses an opportunity to be open with their customers about what data they’re collecting and why.

At 9 Clouds, we take pride in our transparency with our customers. We see GDPR as another great way to build customer loyalty and trust.

Moving Forward Under GDPR

There are many businesses in the U.S. that won’t be affected by GDPR, but we should all be aware of the changes going forward.

Even if your customers are all based in the U.S., you should still take time to decide if you should change your data collection processes and be more transparent with your customers.

We can all benefit from cleaner email lists, higher interaction rates, and greater trust from our customers.