General

The GDPR (General Data Protection Regulation) is a new EU regulation aimed at strengthening data protection laws for EU (and UK) citizens. This comes into force today, May 25^th, and there are several key points that website owners should know about in order to make sure websites are compliant.

The main take-away is that you cannot now assume that consent has automatically been given when someone has visited your website (for example consent for cookies to be used or for information to be stored when submitting a form or purchasing a product). EU (and UK) citizens will now have more control over their personal data. This applies then to any website taking and storing personal data from EU (and UK) citizens, regardless of where in the world the website is hosted or the website owner is based.

Organisations that are found to breach the GDPR risk fines of up to 4% of their annual global turnover or €20 Million (whichever is greater) for the most serious of infringements.

In its most basic form, for individuals and small businesses, here are the main things you need to be aware of / implement:

You should have an easily accessible and easy-to-understand privacy policy on your website that states what data you collect as well as how you store and use that data.
Make sure you have permission to use the personal data you collect for the purpose you set out when you collect it. This includes adding an opt-in checkbox to a contact form if you intend to use the data for anything other than responding to and following up with those particular enquiries (such as signing people up to an e-newsletter). Make sure that opt-in boxes are never pre-ticked – consent can never be inferred.
Make certain you’re storing personal data in such a way as that it can be linked back to that user for viewing or for future deletion on their request.
Give users the “right to be forgotten”, which means providing an easy way for people to request that you no longer collect data on them, delete collected data, or provide a copy of collected data (this could be, for example, a link to a form from within your privacy policy).

Please note that this article is just intended to provide a brief, simplistic overview – it does not represent legal advice. The Information Commissioners Office has compiled a comprehensive guide to the GDPR which I recommend taking a look through in order to fully understand what will be required of you (including a 12 step checklist of steps to take now).

What is the difference between Web hosting and Domain hosting?

I once read a brilliant analogy which helped me not only remember the difference but also explain it to others.

Let’s compare your website to your home. And let’s say you are having a party and you’ve invited several people to your place. You’ve given them your address – which is the location that they will find your house at.

Your website is also located at an address, and that address that you’ve given people to help find your website is your domain name. When you type in that address, it takes you to a place where you can view your website.

In this analogy, your domain name IS your street address.

Going back to your house – an address in itself doesn’t mean anything – you could give someone an address that takes them to an empty plot, or some wasteland. In a similar vein, you can give someone a domain address to visit, but unless you have hosting they won’t see anything.

In this analogy, web hosting IS the house.

You need a house to be able to see the furniture and decoration inside, just like you need hosting to be able to see the content of a website.

Let’s break this down a bit more so we can understand how web hosting works. When you buy a domain name, you’ll notice that when you type in the address in your browser that it takes you to either a blank screen or a site that might say something like ‘this domain is parked’.

If you then buy web hosting separately and upload your website to the hosts server, you can’t view your website online – until you POINT your domain name to your web host.

It took me awhile to understand the difference, and even longer to work out how to explain it to others without their eyes glazing over. Hopefully this will help you!

GDPR for websites: a brief rundown

Web hosting vs domain hosting