Dive Brief:
-
Unroll.me, an email subscription management company, is cutting ties with its European users just ahead of GDPR's May 25 deadline, reports TechCrunch. Unroll.me is meant to manage a user's inbox of subscription emails. However, the company is known for controversially offering to sell the data it mines to third parties.
-
The company said it is incapable of fully adhering to the GDPR's regulations. Accounts existing in the EU will automatically be deleted on May 24.
- Unroll.me's privacy policy says it has the right to collect a user's data and decided what to do with it, including sharing it with its parent company, Slice Technologies. Unroll.me shares the collected personal data with its business affiliates and service providers. "Non-affiliated business partners" are "not authorized" to use this data with the exception of any action performed for Unroll.me.
Dive Insight:
Unroll.me's decision to opt out of GDPR by rejecting its EU market speaks volumes to how it handles consumer data.
Compliance could cost some companies about $5.5 million. However, those which don't comply could face fines, disruption in business, loss in productivity and revenue.
Subscription emails are a necessary burden. People want to stay up to date with companies or be aware of promotions, but the rate in which they flood mailboxes can be overwhelming.
Unroll.me took this into consideration, offering a service to help mitigate the influx of emails. In doing so, the company is granted not only personal data, but the ability to see where a user's interests lie.
Once collected, Unroll.me can offer data to competitors of the companies found in a user's inbox. GDPR wants to protect consumers from companies looking to profit off their data.
Giovanni Buttarelli, European Data Protection supervisor, suggests that consumers should not have to pay to protect data because it is a human right. Buttarelli argues consumers are paying for free services like Unroll.me in exchange for their data, likening the transaction to digital "sweatshops."
