No, cookies aren’t biscuit snacks for kids. Internet cookies have a whole new (and significantly less yummy) meaning.
What is a cookie?
- It’s a file placed on a website by the site operator to collect and store information about individual visitors.
- Information used to save user preferences, e.g. if you purchased something from a particular online store, the site may retain some details to make it easier for you to purchase something next time you visit the site.
- The information might also be used to suggest other items of interest based on previous purchases.
Third-party cookies
- Cookies can also be used by third parties.
- These are the cause of greater concern and lead to legislation.
- Third-party cookies are placed on websites by parties other than the website operator.
- Sometimes website owners allow third parties to operate cookies on their site, allowing the third party to access certain visitor information for marketing purposes.
- Cookies can be blocked by a user, though they’ll usually have to take proactive steps.
- Many people are unaware that cookies even exist and that someone’s acquiring information about them.
Cookie Law
- Due to increasing concern that web users are unaware of cookie practice, particularly third-party cookies, legislation has been created to address this concern and duly branded “Cookie Law”.
- New rules force the website owner to obtain visitor consent before any information can be used.
- Visitor consent may be obtained in a number of ways, e.g. through the website’s terms and conditions and by using a pop-up alert.
- Some limited exceptions exist where the individual user’s consent won’t be required, generally when cookies are necessary to the functioning of the website, e.g. ecommerce sites use cookies to track items to be remembered and stored in a shopping basket or cart to be totalled prior to purchase.
Enforcement
- Perhaps the greatest challenge posed by the new regulations is enforcement.
- How does anybody know if cookies are being used to gain information without the user’s consent?
- The relevant EU directive governs all websites that target EU users, all of which must be compliant within 12 months of the directive being published.
Does your website have a privacy policy? If you haven’t got one, you should get on to it. You do have something of a reprieve, though, because the Information Commissioner’s Office isn’t showing much of an appetite to cart people off to prison for infractions. The truth is, you need to have a suitable privacy policy, state you’re using cookies and you’re pretty much done. According to Sitebeam, the cookie law is as good as dead anyway.
Edward Solomon has over 30 years’ experience in project management, technical education, computer networking, web design and development and is a Digital Business Consultant for PENNInk Productions Ltd.
