Study reveals how GDPR impacted efficiency of e-commerce websites

08/02/2023 | Harvard Business Review

A report examining companies' IT infrastructure efficiency reveals the impact of complying with privacy regulations, such as the EU General Data Protection Regulation and other US state privacy laws. The effect has led to a tradeoff between flexibility and efficiency as businesses adapt their IT infrastructure. The report highlights e-commerce websites as an example, which "rely on Google Analytics to track their customers’ behaviour, and use Mailchimp for email marketing, which integrates easily with Google Analytics to analyze conversion rates of email marketing campaigns." These companies rely on "interdependent technologies to make sure their websites ran efficiently", but those same interdependencies conflict with GDPR compliance. The study examined 400 e-commerce companies and found that businesses relying on interdependent technologies for the efficiency of their website "suffered disproportionately when GDPR came into force."

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