These past few months, our inboxes have been flooded with "updated terms and conditions," to better protect and manage your private information. No, these emails are not a timely realization of the need for Digital Trust in response to the Cambridge Analytica scandal that put Mark Zuckerberg in front of Congress and made #DeleteFacebook trend on Twitter.
Those emails are coming for a different reason: General Data Protection Regulation.
GDPR represents a deadline for new European Union regulations, for which companies have had two years to prepare. Whether you are shopping for handicrafts on Etsy, connecting on LinkedIn, counting your steps with your Fitbit, subscribing to the latest news about craft gin, or finding your next Instagram worthy travel stay via AirBnB, GDPR is reshaping much of the Western internet.
This presents a real test for the world and its data: will this European experiment result in a global shift in policies and company behavior? Is GDPR the answer to mounting digital trust concerns or will new strategies arise in different regions? How would companies navigate an even more fragmented landscape of digital privacy regulation across the Digital Planet?
If that flood of email updates show us anything, it is the need to understand country and context for consumer digital trust and digital evolution in a broader context.
