Are you tired of all the emails in your inbox telling you about privacy policy updates from every service you use? If you’re wondering why there are so many lately, you can thank GDPR. GDPR, or General Data Protection Regulation, is a European Union regulation that went into effect today. In simple terms, it regulates how online services collect and share user data.
While not all companies are ready for it, the big ones have had their legal departments working furiously to make sure they meet the new requirements. That hasn’t stopped an Austrian privacy activist from filing a lawsuit against Facebook and Google on day one, though.
The suit, filed by Max Schrems, names Facebook, it’s subsidiaries Instagram and Whatsapp, and Google, claims that the companies are not going far enough to comply with the new regulations and seeks a total of €7.8 billion, what, as of this writing, is equivalent to $9.1 billion.
Both companies counter that they have been preparing for GDRM for months and are fully compliant.