EU Cookie Law

[ZX7R]

Are any of you making preparations to ensure your websites comply with the new EU cookie law, kicking in later next month?

[ZX7R]

Nope?

[ZX7R]

Time is running out. Anyone else implemented a solution to comply with the law?

[neilb]

The way I read it, or maybe am choosing to read it is that on the sites I have (Opencart and one Zencart) any cookies used are necessary to provide the service the user wants.

[CzarJunkie]

Time running out?

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2012/05/18/cookie_law_ico/

[ss30]

We have a web site for our company that we had set up for us as we know nothing about setting up and the hosting web site's.

We are being told by the hosting company that we need to sort it out but they are not being very helpful, all we know is that the hosting company will do an audit on our site and tell us what cookies are being used and the we need to talk to a lawyer about what we need to do?

[Bald Bouncer]

Time running out?

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2012/05/18/cookie_law_ico/

I get a lot of email with tracking cookies in as well anything on that do you know? (always view all email in plain text anyway)

Just as an added note I always recommend THIS to use to block them, been using it a couple of years now and it's very effective and simple to install

[neilb]

Wolf software have some open source 'solutions' that look pretty easy to implement.

[BBK]

There is still a hell of a lot of open interpretation around what has to be offered here, and tbh its going to be big sites that don't comply first and foremost. As long as you have a formal cookie policy document explaining what cookies you have and what they do, you should be ok for now, it shows compliance whilst you "work on" the perfect technical solution. Tbh I don't see how ICO are going to monitor it all anyway, apparently they only have a handful of full time staff and their funding is being cut (again allegedly), and there's millions of sites out there from UK businesses. If it were me I'd be going for the high-end transactional / high profile sites first and foremost, I reckon this gives me a decade or so ;-)

[ss30]

There is still a hell of a lot of open interpretation around what has to be offered here, and tbh its going to be big sites that don't comply first and foremost. As long as you have a formal cookie policy document explaining what cookies you have and what they do, you should be ok for now, it shows compliance whilst you "work on" the perfect technical solution. Tbh I don't see how ICO are going to monitor it all anyway, apparently they only have a handful of full time staff and their funding is being cut (again allegedly), and there's millions of sites out there from UK businesses. If it were me I'd be going for the high-end transactional / high profile sites first and foremost, I reckon this gives me a decade or so ;-)

In your opinion is my site ok?

www.brjengineering.co.uk

[CzarJunkie]

I get a lot of email with tracking cookies in as well anything on that do you know? (always view all email in plain text anyway)

This is a decent article about emails specifically.
http://www.smartinsights.com/marketp...open-tracking/

As you can see from that the law is all over the place. To say its been ill conceived and badly written is an understatement. Its important to protect your data and obviously try and make users aware of how to do this as easily as possible. But this isn't the way to do it. In the age of Facebook and Twitter, where everyone appears happy to have their lives played out in public, its crazy that a law like this is being implemented. The tools are already available to users to block cookies, we should be educating the public more about that rather than doing it this way. The average user has no idea what a cookie is or what it does, so how will this help? How many users will just click no without reading anything?

In my opinion this law is impossible to both implement properly, or police. There's also a danger that every EU state will
interpret the law differently, so there's little chance of an EU wide standard.

[BBK]

In your opinion is my site ok?

www.brjengineering.co.uk

I'm no expert but your privacy policy looks to cover all the key information at a quick glance. More disturbing is your in Minster Lovell! Been a few years since I was there, but my godfather owns a business in that area and I have a whole load of family live in Witney. No, none of them are David Cameron

[ss30]

I'm no expert but your privacy policy looks to cover all the key information at a quick glance. More disturbing is your in Minster Lovell! Been a few years since I was there, but my godfather owns a business in that area and I have a whole load of family live in Witney. No, none of them are David Cameron

Thanks m8. Cameron lives in chippy not Witney

[CzarJunkie]

We have a web site for our company that we had set up for us as we know nothing about setting up and the hosting web site's.

We are being told by the hosting company that we need to sort it out but they are not being very helpful, all we know is that the hosting company will do an audit on our site and tell us what cookies are being used and the we need to talk to a lawyer about what we need to do?

It's a little concerning that hosting companies are suggesting the above. If you do own a website and want to know what you need to do to Comply with the law, then I'd suggest doing nothing for now, but reading up on it as much as you can and seeing how things develop. This is a law that was supposed to be implemented a year ago, but they decided not to because it was so ridiculous.

My advice would be to keep a close eye on the large websites, such as Amazon, eBay etc. to see how they implement it. The ICO have already said they'll be concentrating on the top 50 websites.

Under no circumstances should you be paying for an audit or any other service offered by any company without seeking further advice. Paid or otherwise.

Un

[Bald Bouncer]

I get a lot of email with tracking cookies in as well anything on that do you know? (always view all email in plain text anyway)

Just as an added note I always recommend THIS to use to block them, been using it a couple of years now and it's very effective and simple to install

Here is an example out of my latest Tesco's mailing

Home <http://mailing.tesco.com/cgi-bin3/DM...f0BYC0BUbWi0Gl>
Games <http://mailing.tesco.com/cgi-bin3/DM...f0BYC0BUbWj0Gm>

Goes to http://ad.doubleclick.net/clk;208005...mh=edc3.560793

which gives me Oops! Google Chrome could not connect to ad.doubleclick.net as the above blocks all shit like that but after reading CJ's link it does seem very grey in that you would have to opt in but they could/may use the presumption you have already opted in, I think it might be a bit like the spam laws introduced in the UK years ago making it illegal but to my knowledge only one person has ever been prosecuted and that if I remember rightly was by T$ and only because they could not get anything else to stick on him.

[CzarJunkie]

Email marketing adds another dimension. The law already says we should only have to opt in, rather than opt out. I guess the issue is what we actually opt in to. I guess it's like agreeing to the terms and conditions of installing software, how many read that?

The EU law is made with good intentions, but the implementation is impossible in its current state. We need data protection and we should start with education.

[ZX7R]

I found this very very useful and free solution here: http://www.civicuk.com/cookie-law/index

It's already been implemented on a number of my sites successfully.

[Zippeyrude]

dont worry about this.... UK government has openly stated that it will not be compliant and the information commissioner that will regulate this will undoubtedly take a relaxed approach to enforcement.

the whole issue is around consent and the extent to which a user is made aware of tracking cookies. the law is not 100% clear on the actual requirements, some interpretations suggest that express opt-in is required to drop 'non essential' cookies. Others auto opt-in and others do very little.

Id suggest not getting too hit up about the risk. ICO will hit large companies first and the guidance arising will be the standard to follow.

To be complaint at this stage I'd recommend that you revise the privacy policy listing the types of cookies and offer the option of opting out, other than via broswer preference (because not all browsers offer the option).

remember that commercial organisations make lots of money via targeted behavioural advertising, so dont lose sight of adopting a more flexible approach to cookie compliance. a pop up screen offering someone the opportunity to not be tracked will invariably lose the company valuable customer insight and therefore profitability. you will not be thanked for that.

[ZX7R]

Aye, good advice there. I implemented it anyway as it was not too intrusive and pretty straight forward.

[CzarJunkie]

An update on this if anyone is interested:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology...y&type=article