Lets start at the beginning, what are cookies, and how do they effect me?
Cookies are small pieces of information that are stored on a user’s machine. They provide a huge selection of information to websites, such as your generic settings or a history of URLs you have visited, but most importantly it provides personal data, e.g. name, address, and what products are in a shopping basket at any time.
As it stands, internet browsers automatically accept these cookies, (based upon your privacy settings). However, the new cookie compliance law is looming ever closer, and it insists that all users should be notified whenever a website wishes to drop a cookie onto their machine.
One possible option would be to serve a pop up window each time a new cookie is dropped on to the user’s machine, but this would limit the user’s web experience. The Internet Advertising Bureau (IAB) has suggested the use of an icon on adverts which when clicked, reveals information about the data being gathered. These are all possible ways that websites will be informing you, the user when they wish to put a cookie on your machine.
But questions start rolling and one of the main ones is: ‘Is it really necessary for the user to accept every single cookie a website attempts to store on their computer?’ ‘Will this not just slow the internet experience down?’
If the cookie is crucial to the correct functioning of the website then the answer to how necessary it is for the user to accept every cookie, most certainly is yes. However, if that cookie is only used to store a preference such as the colour scheme or gadgets to show in a tool bar then it’s probably not essential.
A number of ‘officials’ have been working with the EU regulators to help provide a strict and clear definition as to how the legislation should be implemented, but to also consider what type of cookies should be subject to the legislation, as of yet, the exact criteria is unknown.
The law, which was scheduled to come into force on 26 May 2011, has since been delayed by one year, due to a lack of preparation in the UK, comes from an amendment to the EU’s Privacy and Electronic Communications Directive. It will require UK businesses and organisations running websites in the UK to get ‘informed consent’ from visitors to their websites in order to store and retrieve information on users’ computers, and one of the most common techniques of storing information is known as a cookie.
The ICO has provided advice to help organisations start to think about ‘the practical steps’ they will need to take to remain compliant with the new law.
As far as you the user is concerned, you can choose to allow these cookies or not, however if you do decide to decline them there will be a few changes to your current internet usage, for instance, a website would be unable to remember what you had in your shopping cart, they would be unable to remember passwords and usernames for you, and if your browser was to close down, you would be unable to resume your session, and in some cases you will not be able to log in.
If these will be the only changes to your internet experience, that remains to be seen, and all will become clear once ‘The Cookie Compliance Law’ is enforced.
