Recently you’ve probably gotten a lot of notifications and emails regarding apps, and websites privacy policies. Privacy policies started changing after Mark Zuckerberg’s data-privacy crisis. But Zuckerberg isn’t the whole reason privacy policies are changing.

Privacy policy changes went into effect before May 25th, that is why you most likely got a flood of emails and notifications leading up to then.

Any company operating in any country in the European Union must adhere to a new law; the General Data Protection Regulation. This regulation requires companies to provide users with more control over their data.

These companies have to obtain permissions in more details before using data for advertising. They have to make it easy for users to inspect and delete data that is collected.

Most companies have discovered it would be too difficult to change their policies country by country. That means most companies in the US are trying to comply to the new law.

Companies are making privacy policies easier to read, as well as understand, and make is easier for user to choose what data a company can and can’t use. The law also makes it easier to download and see the data companies are using.