We have covered the European Union “cookie issue” in a few previous articles:
- February 2009: New Cookie Law Will Require User Consent Before Placing Cookies
- December 2009: The Dreaded Cookie Law Crumbles
- November 2010: EU’s Cookie Law still being chewed on – might end up requiring users to “opt-in” for browser cookies…
Now there’s once again cookie news to be shared.
The law is probably still being worked on within the European Union, but a draft has been made in Denmark which is supposed to become effective on May 15th 2011 – giving webmasters just three months to update their websites to give users the chance to opt-out of cookies…. how insane is that?
The actual paragraph is quite complicated in Danish, my native language, so I’m not even going to try and translate it to English, but basically any website which targets the Danish market will have to somehow have to get “accept” from end-users before placing cookies within the browser.
Now, the whole “accept” thing is a grey area as well. There’s no clear definition (yet) if the user will actually have to click “accept” or if it’s considered an accept if the user just continues to use the website, after having received a notification about cookies.
This whole legal business is too complicated for me, but as far as I know, it has not been finally accepted yet. Well, yes, the law has (I think), but not the details, so there’s still hope that this madness can be somewhat stopped. Hopefully we’ll know more in the coming months.
Until then, good luck, affiliates…
Update: iovation recently published an internest article on “Are Internet Cookies Good or Bad” which I suggest you take a look at.
Hmm. This is a little confusing. Targeting websites which use cookies to require users to opt-in to those cookies? What would be the purpose of this? Is it an attempt to stop the actions of sites that use malware, or other spyware to gain information or violate privacy?
Delena
Privacy – to protect the web surfers. Has nothing to do with malware etc. though.
Probably end up being one global accept for all cookies ans that’s the end of it.
this kinda stinks.. in germany there’s a big problem with google analytics now because of this… they’re not allowed to keep third party info on servers outside germany or UE, something like that… does it mean GA will loose some users? because I doubt people will agree poping on their blogs “do you accept our cookies?” questions for the users…
I think it should be implemented at least to see how it works out.