No, those cookies aren't evil!
We need to talk about cookie law, don’t we?
The EU’s Privacy and Electronic Communications (EC Directive) (Amendment) Regulations 2011 (to give it the full name) will be enforced from Sunday, (the 27th of May 2012) by the Information Commisioner’s Office. It, in a nutshell, requires websites to seek permission from users before planting ‘cookies’ on their browsers. These ‘cookies’ are small text files that can be used to monitor what you are doing online.
A little while ago, while he was down visiting us at Public-i, I put a few questions to Carl Haggerty who, when he’s not working with us, is the digital communications manager for Devon County Council. In this capacity, of course, Carl has had to do rather a lot of thinking about cookie law – and my intention is to publish an extended interview soon that talks much more about what the cookie law is attempting to manage an aspect of: online privacy.
But, just for the moment, and because it might be quite useful, here’s a very short audio clip that gives you a very quick, very brief explanation of what Cookie Law is all about.
Hope it’s useful…
Picture credit: Cookie Monster, by Skampy – available on a Creative Commons licence from Flickr (http://www.flickr.com/photos/skampy/2130383424/)
