Slashdot Mirror
UK "No Tracking Law" Now In Effect
Fluffeh writes "The British Gov might have more cameras up on street corners than just about anywhere else in the world, but it seems that the Gov doesn't want anyone else stepping on the privacy of their folks. In what the media have dubbed the 'Cookie Law' all operators of websites in Britain must notify users of the tracking that the website does. This doesn't only cover cookies, but all forms of tracking and analytics performed on visitors. While there are potential fines up up to 500,000 pounds (Over US$750,000) for websites not following these new rules, the BBC announced that very few websites are ready, even most of its own sites aren't up to speed — and amusingly even the governments own websites aren't ready."
Been hearing this my whole life.
Be seeing you...
This is another example of what happens when you let computer illiterate politicians have a say in technology regulations
To be fair, the ICO has proven itself utterly inept when it comes to enforcing its own regulations - I can't see them doing any better with this idiocy.
because atm, ghostery reports 10 diffrent tracking entities.
At the same time as this happens across all of Europe, they roll out INDECT and the Data Retention Directive.
How about I follow each of the MEPs around and write down on a list everyone they speak to, when they speak and where, over the course of 6 months? That would probably mark me as a terrorist.
It's true, Europe is the worst country in the world.
While the British government might have implemented, the law comes from the EU.
It actually came in last year and websites were given a year grace to enable the features required.
Its that grace period which has expired, not that the law has now suddenly been introduced.
The British Gov might have more cameras up on street corners than just about anywhere else in the world
It doesn't, though. The whole "eleventy billion cameras in the UK" thing was made up by one of the screaming right-wing tabloids a few years ago, by counting all the CCTV cameras in about a half-mile stretch of the main street of a fairly scummy part of London, and multiplying by the total length of all the roads in the UK. So, the figure is probably accurate *if* you assume that every single road in the UK has lots of off-licenses, bookmakers, cheque cashing centres, "we buy scrap gold" shops the like - but, it isn't. For the figures to be correct, you'd have to have something like one camera every 60 metres or so on *every single road* right down to farm tracks.
Most cities in the UK have no more CCTV than cities in the US - and if you think US cities don't have CCTV then I wonder what you think CCTV cameras look like...
"you don't have to warn if the cookie is necessary for the functionality of the website."
Not necessarily true, at least in the UK interpretation of the directive. There are some very thin exemptions. That said, logins and stuff are easy - just add boilerplate that says 'By logging in you are blah blah, cookies, blah blah, first born child, blah'
Actually, you *do* have to warn and the definition of "necessary" is quite tight. Login cookies are fine providing there has been a warning as the act of logging in then counts as informed consent.
48 hours before the law came into force, the ICO issued new guidelines at http://www.ico.gov.uk/news/blog/2012/updated-ico-advice-guidance-e-privacy-directive-eu-cookie-law.aspx which basically reads as "If the user's browser accepts cookies, then they agree to the cookies being stored". Making the whole things pretty moot. Why they waited until the "11th hour" to state the obvious is annoying...
The regulations are not actually as crazy as this story makes them out to be. Here are the latest guidance notes from ICO:
http://www.ico.gov.uk/news/blog/2011/~/media/documents/library/Privacy_and_electronic/Practical_application/guidance_on_the_new_cookies_regulations.ashx (PDF)
Page 10 has a summary table with some examples of banned (ie. explicit permission required) and OK cookies:
Where sites have actually implemented this new directive, the implementations often suck just as much as the law, which is not particularly surprising given how poorly it's worded. If you have cookies disabled through your default browser policies the end result on many sites where is a permanantly visible prompt to "Click here to read and accept our cookie policy". Yep, that's right. You have to enable cookies to let them set a cookie that says they will not use cookies to track you.
I'm fairly sure that some of these sites realise that you could set a cookie, immediately try to read it back and if that fails assume cookies are blocked skipping the display of the prompt, and either way you remove the cookie. But no, this law is so poorly written it's not totally clear whether even this would be a breach of the legislation or not and clarification has still not been provided, so as usual for the EU the intention might be good, but the implementation leaves a hell of a lot to be desired. In this case, I can see a number of people are going to end up re-enabling cookies just to get rid of the prompts and end up getting tracked by all those sites who don't implement the law because they are outside the EU's jurisdiction and/or just don't care - completely the opposite of the desired effect.
UNIX? They're not even circumcised! Savages!
"At the same time people must realise that the livelihood of hundreds if not thousands of people depends on data gathered from sites."
No, I must not.
I've seen UK based sites start to implement this, but there's no chance that Facebook, Google etc will follow suit - so if the tracking actually does have monetary value, we've just guaranteed that only non-European companies can benefit from it. Woohoo.
Sigs are so 1990s. No way would I be seen dead with one.
Membership in the EU or the EEC is not the same thing as membership in the Euro (i.e. the currency). The UK is very much part of the EU despite not using the Euro.
captcha: "informs"
Fancy that.
This new law is fucking ludicrus, I generally block all cookies except certain websites, and one of the UK websites I visit has put a pink banner at the top warning about the cookie crap saying I will only see it once, but it relies on cookies to tell wether the banner has already been displayed, meaning it's ALWAYS there because I've blocked cookies on that site.
Who the fuck came up with the idea of using cookies to warn you about the use of cookies?
To do something right, you often have to roll up your sleeves and get busy.
Then by all logic, ain't you in part fault for that by leaving?
It is actually a very good idea. You and I might be capable of controlling what tracking cookies we allow. Most people are not.
I'll see your Constitution and raise you a Queen.
FTA, " amusingly even the governments own websites aren't ready." I'd be in favor of an Eat-Your-Own-Dogfood law that stipulates that a) laws that apply to private businesses also apply to the government, and b) no law need be implemented by the private sector until implemented by the government.
"We receive as friendly that which agrees with, we resist with dislike that which opposes us" - Faraday
Normally these people are kept in warm environments with soft lighting so they can't hurt themselves and cannot be released into the environment because of the damage they would do. But when times are difficult Ministers are looking for good ideas and they get presented with the loony schemes. Inexperienced Ministers - and the current lot are almost all very inexperienced indeed - may get taken in, and so these schemes see the daylight.
Mrs. Thatcher, long may she rot, at least realised that the privatisation of streets and the railways were loony ideas too far. The next Government was inexperienced enough to fall for rail privatisation (unfortunately writing about at least one of the proponents of this here could result in a libel suit).
I do sometimes wonder if, in fact, a number of our Eastern European immigrants are former Stasi members under fake passports who are running the Home Office. But that might be unfair to the Stasi.
From scarped cliff or quarried stone she cries "A thousand types are gone, I care for nothing, no not one."
> Doesn't even matter if the shit happened in
> Hungarian and you live in Norway, you somehow
> want to take credit.
I think you mean "...and you live in Norwegian..."
(-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.