Tuesday 1 May 2018

Website, blog, Checklist, electronic communications.

This post wraps up a number of matters relating to electronic communications and websites.

Website to Blog
A recent change to our website homepage provides links individually to three recent blog posts, but not to the main blog URL which would enable you to see all recent posts.  This was due to a change made in the Feedwind software we use.  I shall be looking into a further change to restore the links to the previous method if that is possible.  In the meantime if you click a link which takes you to an individual blog post you can click on the Norvic Philatelics Blog title (in white) to refresh to show all recent blog posts.  In the same way clicking on Norvic Philatelics takes you to the webpage.


Checklist of Machin Security Stamps
Due to difficulties in sending mass emails (and new regulations) we no longer send out marketing emails or emails to tell you that there is a new version of the checklist.  This blog will be the only place where we will place notifications that there is a new version.  If there has been no notification here since you last asked for a copy to be sent to you, then there is no new copy.  All blogposts announcing a new version will be labelled 'Catalogue'.  Click on the word Catalogue in the label list on the right-hand side to find all posts with this label.


A few people have received multiple emails with the same checklist, even though they have only requested it once.  We believe this is a bookmark problem, and may occur because you go back to the page which already has your email address completed.  Sorry for any inconvenience: this is another thing on the technical To-Do list.

Electronic Communications - GDPR
The EU General Data Protection Regulations, effective 25 May 2018, apply to all organisations (businesses and clubs) having any contact with EU countries and Switzerland.  Simplified, this requires us to have your permission before we communicate with you further; 'communications' can be electronic or by mail or phone.  Permissions can be set to distinguish between marketing/information/fundraising purposes, and many readers will have had multiple emails from clubs, hobby organisations, financial and other companies.  The regs also require that data is only held for as long as it is required.

All our emails (whether to our norvic-philatelics, norphil, or gmail addresses) are routed through Google's Gmail.  This means that if you write to us by email your email address is added to our contacts.  If you have asked for our Security Stamps Checklist our website sends us an email to say that you have asked for it.  Originally this was so that we could tell you when the Checklist was updated, but sending mass emails soon proved problematic because some ISPs regarded such mail as spam.  In particular Britain's BT (and associated) rejected any mass mailing addressed to more than 15 of their customers.  So we no longer write (as mentioned above) to tell you when there is a new version.  

In fact, we don't write to you unless you write to us.  In a very few instances where you have asked about a stamp or other product many years ago we may contact you.  This is a legitmate use of your details.   Otherwise traffic is initiated in one direction only: you send us information, you ask us questions, and you order from our webshop.  Only then do we contact you.

However, if you are reading this and want us to remove your details from our address book, please write and ask, and that will be done.  We cannot remove your details from our web-shop for accounting and tax purposes, and removing account details will also remove order details.

Any questions, please ask!


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