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As the new general data protection regulation approached, I got a ton of emails from services I'm using asking me to give my consent.

My question is, would the new law help me to get rid of the million emails I receive from journals that somehow got my contact information and want me to publish, become an editor, or speak at a conference?

To be clear, it is a theoretical question. I know that each day more and more of these journals appear and there is no way to get rid of them all. But I wonder if I could send them a standard text like "As you know the law.. please delete my contact information".

However, I'm suspect the new law doesn't apply to people that are outside the EU.

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    Yes, the law does only apply to EU citizens. The rest of your question is still interesting, though.
    – allo
    May 28, 2018 at 12:14
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    It matters to companies anywhere that are emailing people in the EU.
    – Flyto
    May 28, 2018 at 13:26
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    Spamming has been illegal for ages in most countries. I still get spam. Predatory journals are already in gray legal areas, they will not care.
    – user9646
    May 28, 2018 at 13:26
  • @Flyto It may apply, but enforcement would be difficult.
    – aeismail
    May 28, 2018 at 13:28
  • Thanks for your input guys. I always was under the impression that those journals may be in a gray area, but they need to hold up at least some "professionality". While it is hard to know the identity of the mysterious Nigerian Prince, some of those journals/conferences do exist. I thought it might be possible to scare them off.
    – halirutan
    May 28, 2018 at 14:00

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It might help, if the people writing those emails are law-abiding.

However, since, a large proportion of such emails are trying to get money out of you by fraudulent means (publication fees or conference fees), they're probably not fussed about breaking another law as well.

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