On 26th May 2011 a law was introduced which directly affects how your website uses Cookies and similar technologies which store information on a user's equipment.
The Information Commissioner's Office (ICO) gave companies 1 year in order to become compliant, however as the 1 year anniversary of this law and the compliance deadline approaches there still seems to be so much confusion.
This confusion is due to that fact that whilst the law was passed, there has been no real guidance or solutions offered as to how companies can be compliant, however in simple terms if your website uses cookie's in order to be 100% compliant you need to be asking for consent before these are installed on a users machine.
Many people argue that this is a ridiculous law and that by effectively making 90% of all websites illegal it will be un-enforceable.
Also generally speaking cookies are actually a positive thing, they help to speed up and improve the user experience online.
It is important however to realize that whilst many of us may not agree with the approach, the purpose of the law was to protect users privacy online which is of course a positive thing.
Arguably however this could have been achieved far more easily and at much less cost by educating users and making browser features to disable cookies more obvious.
So what is a Cookie? A cookie is a small file, downloaded on to a device when the user accesses certain websites.
Cookies are then sent back to originating website on each subsequent visit.
Cookies are useful because they allow a website to recognise a user's device.
An example of a positive use for Cookies might be an e-commerce site, if you add something to an online basket and then don't complete the purchase, often you will find the next time you return that item is still within your basket.
Also tools such as Google Analytics use Cookies, this enables website owners to monitor traffic across their website, using this data they can improve the user experience and ensure they are providing relevant content.
So what is the answer? Currently there is still much confusion and in my opinion much better guidance is needed from The Information Commissioner's Office (ICO), therefore I am not recommending any single approach to compliance, however I would recommend closely monitoring developments and researching available solutions to to achieve compliance.
The Information Commissioner's Office (ICO) gave companies 1 year in order to become compliant, however as the 1 year anniversary of this law and the compliance deadline approaches there still seems to be so much confusion.
This confusion is due to that fact that whilst the law was passed, there has been no real guidance or solutions offered as to how companies can be compliant, however in simple terms if your website uses cookie's in order to be 100% compliant you need to be asking for consent before these are installed on a users machine.
Many people argue that this is a ridiculous law and that by effectively making 90% of all websites illegal it will be un-enforceable.
Also generally speaking cookies are actually a positive thing, they help to speed up and improve the user experience online.
It is important however to realize that whilst many of us may not agree with the approach, the purpose of the law was to protect users privacy online which is of course a positive thing.
Arguably however this could have been achieved far more easily and at much less cost by educating users and making browser features to disable cookies more obvious.
So what is a Cookie? A cookie is a small file, downloaded on to a device when the user accesses certain websites.
Cookies are then sent back to originating website on each subsequent visit.
Cookies are useful because they allow a website to recognise a user's device.
An example of a positive use for Cookies might be an e-commerce site, if you add something to an online basket and then don't complete the purchase, often you will find the next time you return that item is still within your basket.
Also tools such as Google Analytics use Cookies, this enables website owners to monitor traffic across their website, using this data they can improve the user experience and ensure they are providing relevant content.
So what is the answer? Currently there is still much confusion and in my opinion much better guidance is needed from The Information Commissioner's Office (ICO), therefore I am not recommending any single approach to compliance, however I would recommend closely monitoring developments and researching available solutions to to achieve compliance.
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