"Breathtakingly Stupid" EU Cookie Law Passes

Reader whencanistop writes with some details on an upcoming EU law that slipped under the radar as it was part of the package containing the "three strikes" provision, which attracted all the attention and criticism. "A couple of weeks ago we discussed the EU cookie proposal, which has now been passed into law. While the original story broke on the Out-law blog from a law perspective ('so breathtakingly stupid that the normally law-abiding business may be tempted to bend the rules to breaking point'), there has now been followup from a couple of industry insiders. Aurelie Pols of the Web Analytics Association has blogged on how this will affect websites that want to monitor what people are looking at on their sites, while eConsultancy has blogged on how this will impact the affiliate industry. In all of this the general public is being ignored — the people who, if the law is actually implemented, will have to proceed through ridiculous screens of text every time they access a website. I know most of you guys hate cookies in general, but they are vital for websites to know how people are accessing the sites so they can work out how to improve the experience for the user."

Comments

Re:Vital under what conditions?

[whencanistop]

I've seen examples where third parties require cookies to analyze the usage patterns of users on client sites but I don't require logs to understand usage trends on sites where I have easy access to log files. In fact, I think usability testing would reveal more than analysis of usage data.

So how are you going to do this usability testing? Are you going to assume that everyone arrives at the home page and then navigates through your site? This is 2009, wake up to the real world. Most sites have 60%+ visits coming from Google in the middle of the site, to do any usability testing they need to know where they arrived to focus that usability. To get this information you need to have cookies. If you don't, you'll end up with a really nice home page, pointing to your good bits of content and you'll ignore most of your user base. This is the attitude that makes Murdoch think he can get away with putting all his content behind pay walls. It'll fail. If all EU content has to follow the new cookies rule, it will fail too and the only option you'll have in an EU country is to access non-EU content.

Re:Vital under what conditions?

[Idaho]

Exactly.

I know most of you guys hate cookies in general, but they are vital for websites to know how people are accessing the sites so they can work out how to shove more targeted ads in the face of the user."

There, fixed.