[WillUK]

For all those developers: particularly freelancers, who operate in the EU, some important legal matters must now be considered when building sites utlilising cookies i.e. any e-commerce sites, registration sites:

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The use of cookies is governed by Article 5 (3) of EU Directive 2002/58/EC concerning the processing of personal data and the protection of privacy (E-Privacy Directive). It provides:

"Member States shall ensure that the use of electronic communications networks to store information or to gain access to information stored in the terminal equipment of a subscriber or user is only allowed on condition that the subscriber or user concerned is provided with clear and comprehensive information ... about the purposes of the processing and is offered the right to refuse such processing by the data controller. This shall not prevent any technical storage or access for the sole purpose of carrying out or facilitating the transmission of a communication over an electronic communications network, or as strictly necessary in order to provide an information society service explicitly requested by the subscriber or user".

Therefore, the storing of cookies, spyware or other tracking devices on the equipment of an internet user is only permitted if the user concerned is both:

Provided with clear and comprehensive information about the purposes of the processing; and

Offered the right to refuse such processing by the data controller.

In the UK, the E-Privacy Directive has been implemented through the Privacy and Electronic Communications (EC Directive) Regulations 2003 (SI 2426/2003).
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This legislation is being introduced on May 25th. However, the UK is looking to hold back on its introduction until later due to concerns over the effect it will have on business.

It is worth keeping your eyes open on developments.

I hope that this is helpful to some of you....

[TheDemoSite]

Thanks for that - already knew about it, but you helped fill in the detail.

Its just another hassle developers now have to deal with....

[Niall]

Thanks for the info. I wasn't quite sure what it was all about until now. I'm quite relieved, I thought it was going to be more hassle than that!

[UnrealEd]

That's not really new, since the law is in order since 2002... The "clear" and "comprehensive" messages are the ones in your browser-settings panel asking if it's ok to store cookies.

Besides that: I'm pretty sure any malicious developer will certainly find a way to install spyware on some users computer. I've never seen a warning stating "would you like to allow the web to install spyware on your computer?"

[Preston6]

Sorry for being off toipc,

Hi,
From May 25th the Privacy and Electronic Communications Directive will come in to force which prohibits the use of cookies without informed, prior consent from web users. I've been trying to research to see whether or not this will affect Google Analytics.The Directive seems to be designed to prevent behavioural tracking, rather than web stats, but after reading the directive (with no law experience) I'm fairly confused by what will be prohibited.

If anyone has any thoughts on the matter, I'd be very grateful!
Cheers