UK Cookie Law comes into effect on 26 May 2012,
or risk a £500,000 fine
To act in accordance with new EU legislation, websites must now gain consent for the use of cookies.
The law requiring websites to gain explicit consent before storing cookies on users’ computers was passed last year in May, but the ICO granted firms a year to comply before prosecuting any cases.
In simple terms, the law requires you to ask permission from the user before you start dropping cookies on their devices. There are one or two exemptions but they're quite narrow, so don't go thinking you're off the hook!
Apart from the odd lonely voice reactions from the industry have been entirely negative. Many see the law as fundamentally flawed, some hold out hope for a u-turn on the legislation and others hope for a universal solution from browser vendors.
The bad news is that it is really happening: there will be no u-turn, there are no silver bullets and yes, unless you can avoid 'non-essential' cookies altogether, unfortunately it's going to affect your website.
For strict legal compliance, you really mustn't drop any non-essential cookies, including those used for analytics. But the ICO has said that it's looking for some positive steps and I think we can expect the agency to be helpful rather than adversarial in the first few months of enforcement.
While most websites will be able to comply with a few simple tweaks to their code and the application of a consent solution, some third party apps will be badly affected.
Google Analytics is estimated to run on 90 per cent of websites. As an entirely cookie-based analytics solution it is not compliant with the legislation without the provision of explicit consent by website users.
As a software development company, we at Liquid Modules will be very busy leading up to 26 May 2012, so we will be offering a first come, first serve basis to investigate and change your website by this date.
