Dear subscribers,
due to the recent privacy law in the European Union, the FreeLists group
will most likely reach out to each of you through the e-mail used to sign
up on the AngelScript newsletter. Please see the notification below to
understand what this is all about.
Regards,
Andreas Jönsson
Author of AngelScript
www.AngelCode.com
---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: John Madden <jmadden@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Date: 26 May 2018 at 15:44
Subject: FreeLists and the GDPR
To: "jmadden@xxxxxxxxxxxxx" <jmadden@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
As a FreeLists list admin for a list that has been active at least since
January 2016, we're contacting you to let you know about updated policies
and processes here at FreeLists as well one further communication most
subscribers will soon receive. If you'd like to permanently discontinue any
old lists, just let us know. As always, you can reach us via email at
staff@xxxxxxxxxxxxx with any questions.
With the GDPR now in full effect we're actually late to the "check out our
new privacy policy" party but the good news is we've been hard at work over
the last two months getting our act together.
If you're unfamiliar with the GDPR, please read about it here:
https://www.eugdpr.org While FreeLists is not based in the EU and has no
presence there, we do serve both list owners and list subscribers who
reside in the EEA (European Economic Area) and thus it affects all of us.
We think the GDPR is a good thing! As you know we value privacy very highly
and this new law swings the balance of power over personal data back to
consumers where it belongs. Rather than carve out special policy just for
Europeans, we think it's best to follow the EU's leadership on this and
extend these protections to everyone.
You can read our new Privacy Policy and Terms of Service documents here:
https://www.freelists.org/privacy.html
https://www.freelists.org/tos.html
What's Changing
- As of May 19th, 2018, all new subscribers to all lists have been
directed through these documents and a consent process to keep a record of
their acceptance of them.
- The subscriber actions form on your lists' List Pages (
www.freelists.org/list/<list>) are now less-susceptible to automated bot
attacks. This should improve the quality of the experience.
- We've long offered a relatively wide-open subscription form you can
host on your web site. Within a week or so these forms will redirect them
will be redirected to your List Page to use the new consent system. We
recommend you take these forms off your sites (and replace them with a link
to your List Page) to avoid any confusion.
- The Web Login is really only useful to list admins. We'll be making
that distinction more clear in the coming weeks.
Covering Existing Subscribers
Unfortunately our long-standing tradition of requiring opt-in to join a
list is not sufficient and an extra step must be taken.
We'd like to make the transition to a post-GDPR world as smooth as possible
for you. As soon as we can wrap up the code behind this -- hopefully by the
end of this weekend -- we are going to start pulling in anyone who actively
posts to a list by emailing them *o**n**ce* after they post asking them to
express their consent. If they ignore this or choose to opt out, we will
unsubscribe them from the list. They're always free to subscribe again
later, of course. This will get us a more gradual migration with slightly
less disruption.
The next step is to ensure we've covered everyone else -- subscribers who
haven't yet posted and been looped in through the above process -- with a
similar message asking them to provide consent. This leads to a bit more
disruption and potentially some subscriber loss. It's a necessary step
though *and we think** the end st**ate is an improvement.*
This is where you come in!
- *Please let your subscribers know they might be hearing from us**.*
(Again, very new subscribers are already covered.)
- If you have any suggestions on how to proceed, things to be aware of,
things perhaps we haven't thought of, please reach out to us.
- Some EU-based lists are anxious to get everyone covered quickly and
we're here to help. Let us know if you'd like your lists to be covered
immediately.
- We'll accomplish all of this without requiring any new accounts or
logins or gathering of further, unnecessary data.
Here to Help
As always, we're here to help. Any concerns, suggestions, or questions,
please feel free to reach out.
-- John
