The Cookie Law and what you should do about it
What is The Cookie Law?
As an addition to the marketing opt-in law The Cookie Law states that website owners should request user consent before setting cookies on their machines.
Not all cookies are affected, cookies necessary to the good working of your website are not e.g. cookies used to remember a user shopping basket or session cookies containing vital information to provide a requested service e.g. remembering a user location for a property search.
All other cookies are affected including third party cookie such as analytics, campaign tracking, advertising cookies etc
How to comply with The Cookie Law
You need to assess the cookies used on your website and sort them between essential and non essential cookies. If you have non essential cookies (very likely) you then need to define a user consent strategy with your user experience, designers and developers or your agency. There are many ways to implement obtrusive and non obtrusive cookie consent devices.
The ICO website (http://www.ico.gov.uk/), the body charged with enforcing the cookie law has implemented cookie user consent on their site.
Are you at risk of being fined?
Although the European cookie law is already in place and active is it not yet enforced but will be by end of March next year so you need to plan your website changes now. Fines can be heavy but are unlikely to be handed out if you have started the process of implementing user consent for cookies on your website by May 2012.
The cookie law is not an option so you'd better start tackling it now.
If you have any questions about the cookie law or wish to discuss its implementation with us please contact rob@aqueduct.co.uk






