New EU Cookie Law for 2012 Are You Ready?
The EU Cookie Law came into effect in 2012 however, the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) decided that it was pretty fair to allow for website owners to find solutions and implement the rules. This deadline ended two days ago on 26th May 2012 and so from now on websites which do not conform to the law could be handed a fine of £500,000!
Do you want to be hit with that bill? The answer is probably not if you’re honest but what you need to know is that put simply the new rules mean that websites now have to get permission from their visitors before they can place any cookies onto their computers.
This permission must be clearly sought which means you have to ask visitors outright and you must explain to them exactly what the cookies are used for.
What is a cookie?
Cookies are in effect small files which are stored on a user’s computer which have been designed to hold a small amount of data specific to a particular client and website. They allow for the server to deliver a page which has been tailored to a specific user and it can be accessed either by the web server or the client computer.
In some cases the webpage can contain a script which is aware of the data in the stored cookie and thus can carry the information from one visit to the website across to the next. This is why sometimes you may for example search for “red heeled shoes” then when you leave a page in the adverts you will see related searches for say “red heeled shoes” or “heeled shoes” or “red shoes”.
Under the new law what are you not allowed to do in relation to cookies?
Now it is clearly stated under the 2012 Cookie law that you are not allowed to hide the information concerning cookies in your websites Privacy Policy and hope that website visitors will not read them and then take action. You must make the information regarding cookies accessible and clear because for the most part people do not know what they are or what they actually do.
The only cookies which have been deemed essential are those which provide functions to visitors but these must be functions they have asked for. If you have items such as a Google Tracking Code or Social Sharing Tools on your website then you have what is known as third party cookies and thus permission must be sought explicitly from the website visitor so they can accept or decline them.
What do I need to do in relation to the new Cookie Law 2012?
If you are a customer of Brick technology web design Lancashire then you do not need to do anything! We have already taken this matter into our hands and ensured that all of our clients website are fully compliant. If you are not a Brick technology web design client then you need to contact whoever is your web design company and speak to them