New EU Net Rules Set To Make Cookies Crumble

NickstaDB writes "From the BBC article: 'From 25 May, European laws dictate that "explicit consent" must be gathered from web users who are being tracked via text files called "cookies." These files are widely used to help users navigate faster around sites they visit regularly. Businesses are being urged to sort out how they get consent so they can keep on using cookies.'"

Comments

Re:Thanks EU

[DarwinSurvivor]

HAHAHA. Says the guy who's country created the patriot act! American VPS companies have been losing lots of money because people don't want to put their data on a server in a country where the government can just go "This server is running on the same hardware as someone who MAY have sent a secret message to someone in IRAQ with a picture of a child, thus we are confiscating everything!"

Re:They will just bury it

[Anonymous Coward]

Data protection legislation in the EU requires that explicit consent is given. That means clear, unambiguous, and upfront consent. You can't hide it in a blizzard of tick boxes or EULAs. Defaulting options to give consent won't work either.

Big business might try tor rely on a "permissive environment" of weak national regulators but the EU commission takes these things seriously. After stunts like data loss and Phorm they're wise to the tricks. Any wiseguy is just going to get their ass handed to them.

Re:EU = make things harder

[lordholm]

Google requiring log-in = people start using bing (have they renamed it again yet?) / yahoo / altavista.
Really... this is what would happen.

I have seen plenty of people who, when encountering a log-in / register window, they just close the web-page and do something else. Come, to think of it, all sites requiring log-ins, would be a huge boost for productivity.