Posted by Bob 
The EU e-Privacy Directive’s compliance ‘deadline’ is Saturday 26th May and many businesses are still wondering exactly how they should comply.
What the government is saying is that the cookies rule is part of a law aimed at safeguarding privacy online and protecting web users from unwanted marketing. There have been growing concerns over the past few years, which we have highlighted frequently on our blog ‘The Buzz,’ and the EU’s ePrivacy Directive is trying to address them.
So the government’s aim is to protect user privacy, and ensure that they are giving informed consent for organisations using their information. Consequently any organisation that collects digital information needs to obtain people’s agreement, which means that organisations have to tell them why and how they are collecting the information and what they want to do with it.
So far so clear.
The problems have arisen in the general, broad brushstroke approached used by EU because cookies are not all created equal, so while some are intrusive and solely used for tracking and monitoring for marketing purposes, others are simply for making the whole web browser easier and more enjoyable.
Consequently the ICO has indicated that it is highly unlikely that an organisation will get in to trouble for one cookie, and that as long as there is an obvious and clear effort to inform and obtain permission from the user, that organisation should have no cause for concern.
So do you know what cookies are set on your visitors’ computers when they visit your organisation’s site? If not, then you should – you might not be setting any that this law applies to and so will need do no more, but equally you might be unwittingly setting some of the cookies that this law is targeted at, thereby putting your business at risk of, an admittedly unlikely at this stage, prosecution.
We have audited our sites and added our own policies, which we believe meet the current guidelines, and done so for some of our clients already, and if you would like us to help you negotiate the Cookie Minefield, please do not hesitate to get in touch.
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