Changes in the EU - changes to our blog

Have you been getting emails from every company / entity that you do business with online making you aware of a new privacy policy? Did you, like I, think that it was associated with the Facebook data breach that became apparent earlier this year? It isn't - it is due to a law that went in effect on May 25 in the European Union.

I got a notice from Blogger (the Google tool that I use to write this blog) that I needed to ensure that visitors to my blog from the European Union were notified about cookie use - here is the blogger help page:
https://support.google.com/blogger/answer/6253244?visit_id=1-636630375545449774-4208057969&p=eu_cookies_notice&hl=en&rd=1

They wanted me to make sure that I had not made changes to my blog such that the message would not appear... but... I was thinking... I'm in the US, so I don't see the blog as it would be seen in the European Union. Then I saw that they indicated that I could see the page as seen in UK or France by making a simple change to the URL:
http://trekincartwrights.blogspot.co.uk/
http://trekincartwrights.blogspot.fr/

So I checked, and it works! However, I've read in other places that Google's implementation of compliance to the law is being questioned because it doesn't give an "opt out" - just agree and use the site, or don't agree, and your only option is to close it... there isn't an option to opt out and not have data collected.

If you want more information about the EU law that is generating all the emails you're getting about an updated privacy policy, here is one source I found that seemed to explain it well:
https://www.yahoo.com/lifestyle/why-suddenly-getting-private-policy-163200935.html
The bottom line from that article is important:

Bottom line: It’s worth it to read those emails.

We know private policy is still a little confusing, but the point of these emails is to help you better understand how companies are using your information. On top of that, some companies are asking you to actively give your consent to their new policy and may remove you from their mailing list if you don’t.

Here is a discussion from London based "The Telegraph" about fallout:
https://uk.finance.yahoo.com/news/blackout-hits-major-websites-gdpr-075646111.html?guccounter=1
When I went to that site, I guess because it was a UK site, Yahoo required me to approve their use of my data - I guess Europeans are getting that on all the sites they go to since May 25.

I'm off to read a lot of privacy policy emails... if you need me, I'll probably have gone to sleep!