NO MORE D23 INTERNATIONAL MEMBERSHIPS

[darrenf67]

I live in Australia and have been a D23 ember for the past 6 years. Today I got this email:

"Effective August 15, 2018, D23 will no longer be able to allow members outside of the United States to sign up, renew or upgrade their D23 Gold and Gold Family Memberships. We value your commitment to D23 and thank you for your membership. D23 is currently exploring options to allow members outside of the United States to sign up or re-activate their Gold and Gold Family Memberships. Updates will be provided as soon as a solution is identified."

I love being in the club, love the member gifts and magazines and of course am planning to attend the expo next August but my membership will have expired before then.

Does anyone have any info was to why this is happening? It is certainly not fair

 

[rteetz]

I believe I read it had to do with some new international rule put in place.

 

[Goofy_Rob]

I live in Canada and we got the same email yesterday. I actually called D23 but they had no idea why this might be happening. The interesting thing is that they are “currently exploring options to allow members outside the US to sign up or deactivate” which makes you wonder what the problem is they are trying to solve. Clearly it’s not postage and handling as we pay an extra $10US per issue for postage alone.

 

[Goofy_Rob]

Oops. Should have said “reactivate”. The “deactivate” will be automatic!

 

[Hoodie]

I read it has something to do with the EU online privacy laws that were enacted. It may be easier to say "no more international memberships" than "no more memberships for EU members."

 

[BadPinkTink]

in Europe on May 25 2018 a new data protection law called GDPR (General Data Protection Regulation) replaced all previous data privacy laws.

This new GDPR law covers ALL data a company or business or organisation collects, including but not limited to
CCTV in buildings
Recorded phone conversations
Employee records
Revenue and tax information
Customer contact information
Customer payment information
Website cookies and analytical data collection through Google Analytics
Email marketing lists and the collection of email addresses

The law states that businesses must inform users / customers what data is being collected, why it is being collected, how the dat will be used, how long it will be stored and where it will be stored.

The law also states that data can not be collected in Europe and transferred out of Europe UNLESS the country to which it is being transferred has the same or similar data protection laws.

As the American data protection laws are not the same as European GDRP , Disney has taken the step of NOT accepting international D23 members.

 

[BrianL]

in Europe on May 25 2018 a new data protection law called GDPR (General Data Protection Regulation) replaced all previous data privacy laws.

This new GDPR law covers ALL data a company or business or organisation collects, including but not limited to
CCTV in buildings
Recorded phone conversations
Employee records
Revenue and tax information
Customer contact information
Customer payment information
Website cookies and analytical data collection through Google Analytics
Email marketing lists and the collection of email addresses

The law states that businesses must inform users / customers what data is being collected, why it is being collected, how the dat will be used, how long it will be stored and where it will be stored.

The law also states that data can not be collected in Europe and transferred out of Europe UNLESS the country to which it is being transferred has the same or similar data protection laws.

As the American data protection laws are not the same as European GDRP , Disney has taken the step of NOT accepting international D23 members.

Yes, and the fines for violating these new rules are steep. My company had to adapt to GDPR and it was quite an extensive undertaking. Disney is probably playing it safe with this for now until they are 100% certain that they have all compliance measures in order. I would have thought they would have been ready for it when it went into effect, but the risk is too great to them as the fines are levied as up to 4% of the company's profit. In Disney's case, that could be a staggering amount. The EU is not messing around with this!

 

[AurumPunzel]

That's a shame. Was pondering getting Gold membership, and in fact, I know people in Europe who have Gold memberships already, but I seriously hope Disney do launch an international D23 programme that is fully GDPR compliant.

 

[KYMickey]

Europe is becoming more and more a nanny state, they know what's best for the people and business and are determined to control it is much as possible! It's a shame that their attempts at solving problems create more than they solve.

 

[rteetz]

Disney has sent out emails to international D23 members saying they have found a solution for members to keep their membership and it has instructions with what to do.

 

[Josh Hendy]

Disney has sent out emails to international D23 members saying they have found a solution for members to keep their membership and it has instructions with what to do.

VPN encryption? LOL probably also illegal in EU.

 

[AurumPunzel]

Europe is becoming more and more a nanny state, they know what's best for the people and business and are determined to control it is much as possible! It's a shame that their attempts at solving problems create more than they solve.

And I thought Brexit would untether us from the nannystate laws Brussels imposes on every member state, but nope, we were wrong, and now we're paying such a dear price for it because the Brextremists were too blind. However, there were some elements I did support, namely freedom of movement - just simply show your EU passport to the first Schengen port of entry; no EU ESTA or visa needed.

VPN encryption? LOL probably also illegal in EU.

My thoughts initially. If Brussels discovered TWDC doing that, they'd probably be sending their data commissioners to Hammersmith. I think TWDC should start a European chapter of D23 and offer fully GDPR-compliant memberships, not to mention events on our side of the Pond.