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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.
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...
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:
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.