GDPR emails and blog readership

[Snickerdoodles]

I write a blog, and have a mailing list so people can subscribe to the blog. It hasn’t got a big readership at all, and it’s very much a hobby. I don’t earn any money from it.

With all the new GDPR laws coming into force tomorrow, I’m getting a bit worried that I need to send out an email asking current subscribers if they still want to receive emails.

On the one hand, I thought I should send an email (I haven’t sent one yet).

But on the other hand, I’m not sure if I should, as I’ve heard that apparently the GDPR emails that companies are sending out could be unnecessary. The Guardian said today, for example, that ‘Some legal experts have argued that many of these emails are unnecessary, and may even be illegal under existing data protection laws. If you have previously expressly consented to receive emails from a company, that consent would remain valid under the new legal framework. There are also five other justifications for a company processing your personal data emailing you – contract, legal obligation, vital interests, public interest and legitimate interests.’

That article is corect. If people opted in to get your emails and you have proof you don't need to get people to opt in again.

You only need to get people to opt in if they never did in the first place - for example you said 'click here to opt out of our emails' - rather than 'click here to opt in to our emails '

Make sense?!

So if people signed up themselves to my mailing list I don’t need to recontact them?

Precisely

Make sure though you have an opt out link/button on all your emails so they can unsubscribe easily

And maybe look at your privacy notice, update it and link to that in your next email

Brilliant thank you, I’ve added GDPR fields to my mailchimp formats & will look at my privacy notice.

There a fair bit of guidance online but a lot of wrong stuff with it!

I'd definitely look at data you have, make sure it's up to date. Delete anything you don't need anymore and be honest about what you're using data for. A lot of the gdpr stuff is about not holding onto data unnecessarily and not gathering date you don't need

Definitely a good prompt to make sure you're on top of it all!

Good luck

ps am not an expert - just been looking at this myself for work!