New EU Cookie Law

paulstar

I see the Guardian has a simple implied consent implementation:

"This site uses cookies. By continuing to browse the site you are agreeing to our use of cookies. Find out more here"

If it's good enough for a bunch of Lefties at the Guardian it's good enough for me.

And it's similar to MSE's approach. And both use Analytics.

So I think I'm going to crib the Guardian's text. Now I just need to find out where to crib the Javascript etc from...

You'd think the ICO website might offer some helpful code downloads!

Or, Richie-from-the-Boro, you seem very keen on all websites complying - how about doing something useful and writing some code to help all us one man outfits comply?

paulstar

Ah ha.

I've found this which is a simple implied consent implementation of the cookie law and looks remarkably like what MSE and the Guardian have. In fact, I wouldn't be surprised if this is where they got their code from!

https://github.com/cliftonc/eu-cookie

Richie-from-the-Boro

On Cookies and explicit / implicit :
opt-in, - big red cross
opt out - big green tick - unambiguous and easy for all.

I'd prefer the American & European way of explicit consent [do-not-track] rules which the UK has now moved away from, this country's intention not to implement the European ruling and replace 'Explicit' Consent with 'Implied' is just on more example of 'rip~off~Britain'.No advertising placed on my puter targeted or not, ever persuaded me buy anything, its just a waste of GPU cycles and of the screen area displaying them, but certainly it is the case I'd rather not have them in the first place. Microsoft's intended DNT [Do-Not-Track] in IE10 may yet become a reality, we will wait and see the outcome.

Cookies required to make websites work properly I have no objection to, but tracking, targeting and advertising cookies I'd rather dispose of with my right to 'explicit consent'.

Performance cookies - I've no objection to [ collects anonymous data from everyone who views a website, this data catalogues how a user interacts with the website and is used to improve how a website works, but it cannot track you ].

Functionality cookies - I've no objection to [ allows users to customise how a website looks to them. These cookies can remember usernames, language, and regional preferences to provide information like local weather and traffic reports ].

Advertising and targeting cookies - I do have an objection to [ they spam me with adverts, track my movements and steal my privacy the only objective of which is to make money from me ].

As a consumer I should have the right, site by site, to decide. For example I was involved along with hundreds of others in the early debates with the management team here on MSE see (paulstar's comment) when they went over to Analytics. Most of those of us that support this site and its advertising are fine with this, this site for example does not show me a targeted ad for a Horstmann E30 I looked at yesterday .. .. most others do. Most commercial websites do not, and never will offer anything other than a 'smoke and mirrors' version of a cookie explanation with the implied version, most public websites do, many even offer a tailored version such as this one for the MOD where you can accept or reject the advertising and targeting cookies but keep the other two, the 'My Account' commercial side still works but the targeted adverts and tracking functions are disabled - it really is not that difficult to implement.

Mista_C

Richie-from-the-Boro wrote: »

On Cookies and explicit / implicit :
opt-in, - big red cross
opt out - big green tick - unambiguous and easy for all.

Wouldn't those be better the other way around, i.e. X for opt out, tick for opt in?

Performance cookies - I've no objection to [ collects anonymous data from everyone who views a website, this data catalogues how a user interacts with the website and is used to improve how a website works, but it cannot track you ].

Functionality cookies - I've no objection to [ allows users to customise how a website looks to them. These cookies can remember usernames, language, and regional preferences to provide information like local weather and traffic reports ].

Advertising and targeting cookies - I do have an objection to [ they spam me with adverts, track my movements and steal my privacy the only objective of which is to make money from me ].

As a consumer I should have the right, site by site, to decide. For example I was involved along with hundreds of others in the early debates with the management team here on MSE see (paulstar's comment) when they went over to Analytics. Most of those of us that support this site and its advertising are fine with this, this site for example does not show me a targeted ad for a Horstmann E30 I looked at yesterday .. .. most others do. Most commercial websites do not, and never will offer anything other than a 'smoke and mirrors' version of a cookie explanation with the implied version, most public websites do, many even offer a tailored version such as this one for the MOD where you can accept or reject the advertising and targeting cookies but keep the other two, the 'My Account' commercial side still works but the targeted adverts and tracking functions are disabled - it really is not that difficult to implement.

I agree with that and have turned down a number of companies wanting to advertise on my business website. The way I see it I'm a website visitor first and foremost, if I don't want this rubbish then why should I push it on my customers?

I used a similar script that allows customisation of cookie acceptance. There's even the option of adding in "necessary cookies" that cannot be unchecked, shopping cart, custom settings, etc. so the less savvy don't have to worry about not accepting the right cookies. It's all there explaining what the necessary cookies do before they accept cookies anyway so everything is transparent.

Richie-from-the-Boro

HiYa Mista_C,

Yes the other way around would be ok .. .. providing the colours were reversed, the RED being [ yes please spam me ] the opt-in and the GREEN [ no thanks ] opt-out, the point being you relinquish your right to whatever by opting-in. Really its about the marketing worlds god given grip on consumers via their Governments to shove sale~mail trough my door - sale~voice down my phone and sale~frames down my internet. I've had no door knockers for years and live on a main drag [ MSE sign from years ago ] I get no phone spam [ TPS ] and get relatively no mail spam [ MPS ] but apart from fixing frames on web sites and changing the P3P settings [ Privacy Preferences Platform ] in browsers you can't escape the perpetual spam from the interwibble.

I'm pleased you gave 'customisation of cookie' options to your visitors it shows insight, as I said in an earlier thread no UK customer of a UK website is going to buy a fridge / TV or sofa / dining table from the other side of the globe. Most consumers would be happy without the RHS clutter that this website displays, however this website's whole income is derived from that RHS clutter .. .. and that's my point. I'd be happy to accept what I describe as spam from MSE because that's their whole monetary existence depends on it. I am however unhappy that the worlds direct [ the direct marketing association (dma) is europe’s largest professional body representing the direct marketing industry. with a large in-house team of specialists offering everything from free legal advice and government lobbying on direct marketing issues to research papers and best practice ] and indirect marketing lobby has persuaded Governments that e-commerce would suffer if the 'customisation of cookie's' option was offered. It wouldn't, 99% of the consumers don't want it, tracking is iniquitous and eagerly overused, websites you have never used, never dealt with, and will never use track you for analytical purposes.

paulstar

No doubt bigger companies have the IT expertise to offer selective opt-outs etc, but this law is supposed to apply to all websites and even the most basic implied consent implementation - a molehill for an IT expert maybe - is a technical mountain for many.

Which is why I like the Met Office implementation and, as I posted above, this guy's helpful code https://github.com/cliftonc/eu-cookie which implements a similarly simple solution.

What I really want to put as a notice is "If you don't like the harmless Analytics cookies this website uses then sod off" though that perhaps isn't quite the best way to phrase it. But that's in effect what the Met Office notice says.

paulstar

Richie-from-the-Boro wrote: »

... many even offer a tailored version such as this one for the MOD where you can accept or reject the advertising and targeting cookies but keep the other two, the 'My Account' commercial side still works but the targeted adverts and tracking functions are disabled - it really is not that difficult to implement.

Interesting, though I see the main MOD site goes down the MSE/Guardian/Met Office route.

Mista_C

I eventually opted for this one...

http://silktide.com/cookieconsent

That's not my site btw, that's the site offering cookie consent code with customisation (for site owners and visitors).

It wasn't the first I looked at. I even wrote my own code initially but came across this while visiting another site. I just loved the simplicity of adding it to my own site and the way it can manage multiple sites offering the same cookies, although I didn't go for that part.

I chose to download the sources rather than use the 'live' sources so I could make a couple of minor modifications to the code to suit one of the sites I look after.

paulstar

Mista_C wrote: »

I eventually opted for this one...

http://silktide.com/cookieconsent

That's not my site btw, that's the site offering cookie consent code with customisation (for site owners and visitors).

It wasn't the first I looked at. I even wrote my own code initially but came across this while visiting another site. I just loved the simplicity of adding it to my own site and the way it can manage multiple sites offering the same cookies, although I didn't go for that part.

I chose to download the sources rather than use the 'live' sources so I could make a couple of minor modifications to the code to suit one of the sites I look after.

That's a really useful site. Thank you.

jbreckmckye

The best part about the cookie control is that you can only really record a user's responses using cookies themselves.

So that means someone who chooses 'no cookies' will have to do so again every time they revisit the site. Madness.