Cookie law makes most UK websites illegal (£500k fine for schools)

[edutech4schools]

is this all true?

 

Cookie law makes most UK websites illegal: what you need to know | Silktide blog

 

134 Marketing Blog

[plexer]

Yup.

 

Ben

[wesleyw]

Seeing as ICO have never even given out a £500,000 fine, £130,000 was the largest for an LA who lost huge amounts of data I doubt schools will get fined for this they may be contacted to get it sorted out.

 

 

Wes

[InterwebsGuy]

http://www.edugeek.net/forums/web-development/94696-website-cookie-law.html

http://www.edugeek.net/forums/web-development/93557-cookie-law.html

 

Just thought I'd bring those to your attention, in case you missed them.

[Gatt]

Well my site should now be compliant with "Cookie Control" for Wordpress

 

Just need a few people to visit and ensure they get the popup at the bottom left of the site.

[InterwebsGuy]

Well my site should now be compliant with "Cookie Control" for Wordpress

 

Just need a few people to visit and ensure they get the popup at the bottom left of the site.

 

If it's the one in your signature, I didn't get any popup.

 

Oh.. maybe I did, eventually!

[Gatt]

Not even this?

 

[localzuk]

Well my site should now be compliant with "Cookie Control" for Wordpress

 

Just need a few people to visit and ensure they get the popup at the bottom left of the site.

 

That still isn't compliant - your site is placing a pile of cookies (such as some from addthis) on my machine before I've clicked the link - the law requires an 'opt in' to any tracking stuff.

[InterwebsGuy]

Not even this?

 

[ATTACH=CONFIG]13950[/ATTACH]

 

I did eventually get it - I think it was just a slow loader.

[newpersn]

 

Got that one.

[InterwebsGuy]

That still isn't compliant - your site is placing a pile of cookies (such as some from addthis) on my machine before I've clicked the link - the law requires an 'opt in' to any tracking stuff.

The only way of combating this I can think of (at least immediately) is to go back to the days of welcome screens/landing pages which contains the opt in/out mechanism and nothing else. I can't see this happening however, it is a backwards step in web interface design and throwback to the 90s!

 

Edit to add: And you can't exactly guarantee your traffic will always enter your site through the main page - it generally comes in all over the place.

Edited May 15, 2012 by InterwebsGuy

[Gatt]

Looks like AddThis are working on this - there seems to be nothing, short of removing it, that can be done

 

I refuse point blank to "break" my site (ie make it user unfriendly for a start..) by littering it with annoying popups about the use of cookies

For now, I think a pinned post on the front page will have to suffice..

[sparkeh]

That still isn't compliant - your site is placing a pile of cookies (such as some from addthis) on my machine before I've clicked the link - the law requires an 'opt in' to any tracking stuff.

Agreed I have 8 cookies stored. Also no opt in appeared.

[Gatt]

Well, as previously stated - I am not breaking the site to satisfy a few bureaucrats in Brussels..

I will be posting a pinned post advising that the site uses cookies and that "we are working hard to .. blah blah.."

[Gatt]

ok found another WP plugin - can someone check for me?

[InterwebsGuy]

Personally, I am of the opinion it's the likes of Google and the other big boys that actually track you across multiple web sites when using Analytic's, Social Plugins or whatever that need to play ball. Just because you choose to have a Facebook Likey button on your pages doesn't mean they have the right to track your visitors browsing habits. As I have said previously, these are the guys that need to set-up a section on their websites that allow you to opt out of all Google Ad/Analytical (..) tracking, and as a result, your wishes should be then applied to millions of other websites.

 

In addition, who is going to enforce this on the old, dead, web sites that are no longer maintained? The web is full of them!

 

I am interested in watching how many people flout this law, it will be just one of these laws people break as routine, however wrong that may be.

Edited May 15, 2012 by InterwebsGuy

[InterwebsGuy]

ok found another WP plugin - can someone check for me?

It appeared to set a whole heap of Cookies, I declined them, and it redirected me to Google. Cookies were still set before hand, however.

[Gatt]

I think this is going to be a problem with Wordpress itself.. as these addons apply after its loaded a heck of a lot of stuff first...

[Gatt]

Bit of an interesting read - seems there's a bit of a debate over who this actually applies to..

 

WordPress › Support » How can we control cookies with new EU legislation?

[InterwebsGuy]

I think this is going to be a problem with Wordpress itself.. as these addons apply after its loaded a heck of a lot of stuff first...

Sounds plausible. I haven't really had much to do with WP, so wouldn't know what to suggest. I guess if you have other plugins running, they could well be over riding the no tracking Cookies plugin?

[Gatt]

Well I've gone back to the original plugin for now as I got the impression it blocked more

[Gatt]

This is informative.. EU “Cookies” Directive. Interactive guide to 25th May and what it means for you

[3s-gtech]

Cookie Control is effective, but it works on scripting. You can't just install it and expect to do nothing more - it must be scripted. For example, I have it set to only allow Google Analytics cookies when the user has accepted, otherwise they're not set. If you 'Remove Consent' another script deletes the Analytics cookies. This is on our landing page only (which acts as a hub). It is written into our policies that the hub is the only site that doesn't set cookies automatically - if you stop Joomla, Wordpress and Moodle doing this you can break all logons (frontend at least).

[Gatt]

I've configured Cookie Control with my GA info and disabled the GA plugin as advised.

The trouble is I suspect Wordpress sets a load of Cookies before the Cookie Control one is loaded, and I suspect WordPress may need to do a bit of code bashing so that plugins such as Cookie Control get loaded first, or they implement their own version within Wordpress itself.

[InterwebsGuy]

The problem with these consent plugins is they are JavaScript based and won't work if the user is running without JS enabled. Sure you could argue that if they have JS disabled, other peoples Cookies probably won't be being set either. Just another angle to look at it from!