From 25th May, all websites must tell visitors if they employ non-essential cookies AND must get explicit permission from visitors to store those cookies on their computer. This clearly has implications for many thousands of website owners, given that the majority of websites use cookies.

The Key Multimedia website – just as almost any other website – uses cookies to improve the user experience for things like sharing buttons, and to gather statistics on visitor numbers via Google Analytics.

The Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) is the organisation that will “police” this directive and has released guidance about how this should be done, but be warned it is a very difficult read.

The ICO website is also a good example of how compliance may be sought – with the use of a pop-up window approach.

The choice of how you deal with this directive is yours as website owners, but here are our thoughts :

  • Implementing the directive is likely to adversely impact your website traffic, as more people will click away from your site when they see a pop-up window, rather than accept the cookies;
  • Your Google Analytics stats are likely to grossly under-report your real traffic as website visitors that arrive at your site and don’t accept your cookies will not be tracked
  • The directive will put those that comply with it at a disadvantage to those who don’t… although they may avoid a fine!
  • Most website owners will not implement the directive, either through ignorance or defiance, or simply because they don’t know how to implement the changes
  • The BBC reported that the majority of Governement websites will fail to comply in time – read the story here
  • The ICO guidance states “…it is highly unlikely that priority for any formal action would be given to focusing on uses of cookies where there is a low level of intrusiveness and risk of harm to individuals. Provided clear information is given about their activities we are unlikely to prioritise first-party cookies used only for analytical purposes in any consideration of regulatory action”

What do we recommend?

My team have spent considerable time reviewing the various methods for implementing full compliance with the Directive but there does not appear to be one universal approach. So, rather than making dramatic website changes, we are recomending that all of our clients take some action – at the very least change their Privacy Statements to include a reference to the Cookie Directive and describe what cookies are being used; how they are used and how they are controlled.

What to do next?

We recommend that you review your ‘Privacy Statement’ page and add a section that covers Cookie Use. The Privacy statement for the Key Multimedia website can be found here and you are welcome to use that as a template.

If you would like to copy the relevant sections on cookies we have added them to below. Note – we have added an optional sections for those that use a shopping cart engine.

EU Cookie Law Resources

Sample update to your Privacy Policy

Cookies

We use a number of different cookies on our site. If you do not know what cookies are, or how to control or delete them, then we recommend you visit http://www.aboutcookies.org for detailed guidance.

The list below describe the cookies we use on this site and what we use them for. Currently we operate an ‘implied consent’ policy which means that we assume you are happy with this usage. If you are not happy, then you should either not use this site, or you should delete the cookies having visited the site, or you should browse the site using your browser’s anonymous usage setting (called “Incognito” in Chrome, “InPrivate” for Internet Explorer, “Private Browsing” in Firefox and Safari etc.)

First Party Cookies

These are cookies that are set by this website directly.

Google Analytics: We use Google Analytics to collect information about visitor behaviour on our website. Google Analytics stores information about what pages you visit, how long you are on the site, how you got here and what you click on. This Analytics data is collected via a JavaScript tag in the pages of our site and is not tied to personally identifiable information.We therefore do not collect or store your personal information (e.g. your name or address) so this information cannot be used to identify who you are.

You can find out more about Google’s position on privacy as regards its analytics service at http://www.google.com/intl/en_uk/analytics/privacyoverview.html

WordPress: Our websites runs the popular WordPress CMS and cookies are used to store basic data on your interactions with WordPress, and whether you have logged into WordPress. We use a session cookie to remember your log-in for you if you are a registered user and we deem these as being strictly necessary to the working of the website. If these are disabled then various functionality on the site will be broken.

More information on session cookies and what they are used for at http://www.allaboutcookies.org/cookies/session-cookies-used-for.html

Third Party Cookies

These are cookies set on your machine by external websites whose services are used on this site. Cookies of this type are the sharing buttons across the site allow visitors to share content onto social networks. Cookies are currently set by **LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook, Google+ and Pinterest. In order to implement these buttons, and connect them to the relevant social networks and external sites, there are scripts from domains outside of our website. You should be aware that these sites are likely to be collecting information about what you are doing all around the internet, including on this website.

You should check the respective policies of each of these sites to see how exactly they use your information and to find out how to opt out, or delete, such information.

** Delete as appropriate

Optional paragraph for those using a Shopping Cart

Shopping Cart

We use a session cookie to remember your log-in for you and what you’ve put in the shopping basket. These we deem strictly necessary to the working of the website. If these are disabled then various functionality on the site will be broken.

The information above is given in good faith. However, if you are unsure about any of the specific points of the EU Cookie Law we recommend you consult your legal advisors.