EU Cookie Law

[steve.ledger]

Would that not be the responsibility of Jotform (et al) ?
And since when is the www under Government control?
sigh....

[Cloud]

It's apparently the responsibility of the website owner. The directive from the EU was brought in to combat spyware etc but is is going to be a huge hassle for everyone as the fine is a maximum £1/2million

[Soquili]

I would assume that any form or widget you may use on your site that requires the use of a cookie must include code to request permission from the visitor to allow the cookie.

As I understand it the EU Cookie Law is written to help prevent companys and or web sites from placing cookies specifically to track an individuals internet activity.

[Cloud]

You would think so but do you know any that do, for instance does facebook include an opt out within the widget or does even google analytics. The law as it will stand has left it open for just the website owner to be the sole personal responsible for this. If you can install a cookie widget then the customer could get scared and just leave your website, the bbc has said that UK business could lose upwards of £10billion in the following year because of this.

[Cloud]

I've just run an audit of my site for cookies and the only cookies showing up are for google analytics, I checked a clients with a facebook widget and it also showed a cookie from facebook but not from ecwid which is also present on the site, so it seems certain embedded widgets do not use cookies, I also checked jotform and the does not seem to either. I will try running another audit using another service and see if that picks anything up.

[Soquili]

I don't create websites so no I don't know of any that do.

Did you need to write code to place a cookie for any widget you are using now? I would assume that you did not, the widget included code for a cookie if it is needed. Any company supplying widgets that require a cookie would not last long if their user's are being subjected to a fine for their use.

Of what use is an audit of your site for cookies? Those would be cookies your site has picked up from another site. Cookies you would be subject to the EU Cookie Law are non-existant until a visitor uses a service or form that would generate a cookie and place it on the visitor's machine.

[Cloud]

No matter what you and I may think this is the situation we are being faced with here in the UK. The audit of the site for cookies is so that I can personally see which widgets are using cookies and then listing these cookies in my privacy policy. For instance on my site it is using google analytics and I will put this in the privacy policy. At the moment we do not know to what level they (EU) will require in terms of compliance, at the very least it is to have a privacy policy listing the cookies and at the high end it is having a pop-up (etc) showing that cookies are being used and having the option to opt out and disable the cookies or simply leaving the site.

[handrawn]

here is an example of what skech is talking about - the white 'popup' at the top of the page:

http://www.ico.gov.uk/for_organisations/privacy_and_electronic_communications/the_guide/cookies.aspx


a good place to start if you want to get up to speed
also see here:

http://www.cookielaw.org/

like it or not this is serious stuff... not to be ignored if it applies to you

[handrawn]

And since when is the www under Government control?
sigh....

wake up

[Soquili]

Steve I know this is a serious matter. My point is the widget being used is the best place to put any code to request permission to allow a cookie. The widget contains the code to push a cookie onto a visitor's computer and should trigger the request. Simply placing a popup will not prevent an existing widget from pushing out a cookie.

A new widget is required and the creator of the widget must be required to include the code to make a request and then abide by the viewer's response.

This is not something you can put into a placeholder or popup layer as a standalone addition to anything that creates a cookie.


If you place any cookie creating widget/code on a page without any other content you can have the link to the page trigger a popup or intermediary page requesting permission to place a cookie. Then your popup or intermediary page must either proceed to the where the cookie will be created or return to the previous page.