New cookies law: Are you EU-compliant?

by Urs E. Gattiker on 2011/05/26 · 6 comments 10,763 views

in d business regulation

The new EU ‘Cookies’ law took effect on 2011-05-25, a European law requiring organizations’ websites that track users’ cookies – the personal information stored by PCs, iPads and smartphones – to first secure explicit permission from site visitors – The Privacy and Electronic Communications (EC Directive) (Amendment) Regulations 2011.

For now, we recommend that if your website uses cookies, you should:

    – include a link to your privacy policy on all pages (see point 2, including an explanation about Google Analytics and Adobe Flash issues – note our policies link at the bottom right of every webpage);
    – use that policy to explain how and why you use cookies; and
    – ensure that people can block your cookies while still getting access to most of your services.

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Your privacy policy should explain, for example, that you use cookies to count visitors to your site. If you facilitate the delivery and reading of third party cookies on your site, that should also be addressed and third parties should be identified. If you use Flash cookies, address that too (again, see our policy for an example).

UK companies have one year to comply. If a website has not developed a solution one year after May 26 and they are found to consistently be breaching the directive, the company could be fined up to £500,000.

Tidbit: You can experience the UK government’s non-compliance with their own ‘cookie law’ – without accepting a cookie you cannot download the regulation… Such a pity when a regulator cannot get it right.

More resources

What is your opinion? As always, the comments are yours.
Please enter a link to your own privacy policy addressing this issue below, so others can see how it’s done.

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Tagged as: Adobe Flash, compliance, Comscore, data protection, Datenschutz, Datenschutz Richtlinien, EU cookie law, EU Cookie-Gesetz, EU Privacy Directive, EU regulation, Google Analytics, hot to comply, privacy, social media monitoring

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