ICO sets cookie-law flouters deadline - to open an HTML editor The Information Commissioner's Office (ICO) has set some website operators a deadline to begin efforts to comply with UK regulations that set out rules for the use of cookies. Dave Evans, the ICO's group manager for business and industry, said that some website operators had failed to "engage" with the watchdog about their use …
Has anyone seen a popup *anywhere* that says anything more than the syntactic equivalent of 'we use cookies, click here to say you're happy'?
I'm still looking for the site that tells me which cookies are used, what they're used for, by whom they're used, and which allows me to accept or deny their storage on an individual and non-volatile way.
Only the BBC. All the others, including some who should be setting an example (yes, I'm looking at you, Consumers' Association) merely tell me, as you say, that their site uses cookies.
As far as I am concerned a site can drop as many of its own cookies on my system as they want. But not any third party cookies. And if I find they go so far as share my interests with advertisers via cookies (and I'm looking at you, John Lewis, despite what it says in your privacy policy) then their relationship with me is at risk.
I've dealt with the ICO on several occasions when companies have been repeatedly abusing personal data. In one case I filed an FOI request to discover that the abuse had been going on for years and no enforcement action was taken, when any reasonable person would have expected the company to be fined.
Enforcing this stupid cookie law is a waste of time. There are real abuses going on out there that the ICO are not pursuing, instead they are wasting their time on this stupid law that nobody at all seems to want. And how come other European countries don't seem to be so zealous?
"Broadly speaking, there’s two ways we go about this:" There is of course a third way. The ICO simply ignore it as it's a stupid law. But the whole idea of laws that are simply ignored and not enforced because they're stupid seems to be an impossible concept for UK civil servants and enforcement groups.
"But the whole idea of laws that are simply ignored and not enforced because they're stupid seems to be an impossible concept for UK civil servants and enforcement groups."
Oh, yes. Let's reinforce a culture in which un-elected civil servants can decide on their own which laws to ignore and which to enforce because said laws are "stupid". LET'S!
I can only hope this monumental example of stupidity is meant as sarcasm.
The ICO is supposed to police the law in respect of telesales calling numbers registered with the Telephone Preference System, potential fine of £5k per instance. Despite thousands of reports a day the ICO has NEVER fined anyone. I find sales calls much more intrusive than cookies, I have to shift my fat arse to the room where the phone is and answer in case it's something that matters (like my granny calling because she's had a fall and needs help) only to find I need to tell the low-life caller to F* off (not granny).
...from internet users expressing concern about the use of cookies by websites.
Well whoop-de-effeing-doo.
What a colossal waste of everyone's time and money. Nobody else in the world is being so anal about this, why are we spending time and money addressing a non-existent crisis and making UK websites more annoying and therefore less competitive than everywhere else in the world. I thought the current thinking was to REDUCE red-tape?
*sigh*
Websites are now much more annoying than they were before this crap came in. What the fuck were they thinking?
I want a global opt in for cookies to say I don't give a crao about them, but I do get annoyed by stupid cookie bars I have to chase around the screen like here on el-reg when using a mobile browser.
I have kept them hosted here, but the UK will have to do without my finance from now on. Again the UK is maliciously targeted by the corrupt EU in another attempt to ruin our lead in IT, the politicos are too busy on their knees pleading for jobs on the gravy train.
Cookie law, absolute rubbish, dreamt up on a wet Friday afternoon by a bunch of overpaid foreign jobsworths.
Why is this whole thing so complicated?
1. Session cookies are the only things we really need(*), for advanced functionality such as login, shopping-carts etc - and these are already allowed via the exemption - no need to ask the user.
2. Storing preferences between visits ["remember me"] also doesn't need a notification: clicking the button to "remember me" is sufficient implied consent. [though it doesn't hurt to have a privacy policy.]
3. There's no legitimate reason to use any other form of cookie - 3rd-party analytics or tracking cookies. Sites that do use them deserve the ire of the ICO.
(*) PHP has session.use_trans_sid as a workaround - it's possible to avoid session cookies, though the result is inelegant.
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