Publisher Group Blasts Google Over Forcing GDPR Liability On Small Publishers

We discussed a few months ago how Google dumped the GDPR responsibilities on their AdSense publishers and customers, as opposed to taking responsibility themselves for the liability. Well, it resulted in a massive publisher group of 4,000 publishers writing a scathing 5-page letter to Google’s CEO that tells him their handling of this “severely falls short.”

Barry Levine covered this letter and the fallback on this whole thing extremely well at Martech Today – so check it out there. Let me give you the SEO/webmaster feedback from WebmasterWorld:

I wonder if it is Google’s strategy to make to turn this GDPR thing into one massive confusing mess for everyone.

I am beginning to wonder whether the EU’s strategy is to turn it into a massive confusing mess.

Big business has the resources to deal with this, that is lawyers and developers to allow them to find solutions that will make them untouchable. Whereas small business will be vulnerable. As a very small independent business the risk is pretty small, if any one comes after you close and get a job. But the businesses that have the most at risk are the large small businesses or mid-sized companies, where simply closing your doors is not a feasible option. It may be ultimate outcome but certainly not the desired one. So if barriers are created preventing small firms from growing into big firms, then the big firms will be more secure than ever, and thus will be i n a position to do what they like. FB in front of the US Congress or UK parliament is a perfect example.

I am not surprised by all the reaction from the publishing world, I am just surprised it took so long for this to come out.

GDPR is in 25 days from now – are you ready?