EU Cookie Law Upsetting Micro Business Website Owners in the UK

March 31, 2012 - PRLog -- On 26 May 2012 the 2008 update to the Privacy and Electronic Communications (EC Directive) Regulations 2003 comes into force after a year of so-called grace for UK business to find ways to comply with the regulations.

Alex Barrett (proprietor at Wick IT Services) has been engaged in a series of long and confused discussions on with concerned micro business owners who own websites and other service providers who are concerned about their liabilities and responsibilities on behalf of their clients whose websites they have designed or manage.

After reflection and detailed examination of the guidance issued by the Information Commissioner's Office, Alex decided that a clear briefing for micro business owners, website administrators and the general public was a necessary step.

The initial main points that he reminds readers are that the laws are in place, a grace period has been given and failure to comply will expose those who offend to a maximum fine of £500,000.

The main article notes that very few major commercial or governmental websites yet have any attempt at compliance in place. This absence of activity cannot be taken as an indication that the law will not be enforced come June 2012 but does suggest that there is a wide consensus that users do not understand the nature of cookies.

To address the general ignorance as to the nature of cookies, Alex explains what a cookie is and how the different varieties of cookie are stored on computers and used by web service providers. He also explains where the privacy concerns stem from and the flaws in the system as it stands in a clear and simple to understand manner, certainly for anyone capable of running an ecommerce enterprise.

This explanation shows how cookies may be used to track an individual browser between sites and how, exactly, that works in practice and who holds the information. The information is very different to the beliefs held by many of those that Alex has been talking to in the general forum of debate.

As the detailed yet easy to follow article reaches its conclusion, Alex warns that the real elephant in the room is not the cookies themselves but the code scripts used by web pages that are the very engines of user exploitation. The cookies are the innocent spore; evidential traces of activities that many innocent users have no idea are taking place as they browse the internet.

Alex recommends that all those responsible for websites, hobby, business or indeed personal blogs to check that they are ready for compliance when the law becomes mandatory on May 26th and has prepared the appropriate plug-ins and code snippets for Wick IT Services managed clients.

However, like the rest of the market, he recommends holding fire on implementation as placing barriers to entry to websites may be detrimental to some websites and allow foreign competition to take advantage of their more liberal approach to cookies.

You can read the entire article on the Glass Box blog here:  http://wickit.co.uk/glass-box-blog/109-the-eu-cookie-law-...

The official guidance from the Information Commissioners Office can be downloaded as a PDF file from here: http://www.ico.gov.uk/for_organisations/privacy_and_elect...

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