The Sanity Assassin
Posted on 12th May 2011
An update to my recent post.
With thanks to a fellow Perler, Smylers informs me that a Flash Cookie refers to the cookie used by Flash content on a site, which saves state on the users machines, by-passing browsers preferences. Odd that the advice singles out this type of cookie by name though, and not the others.
In an article on the Wall Street Journal I found after posting my article, I found it interesting to discover that the ICO themselves use Google Analytics. So after 25th May, if you visit the ICO website and see no pop-up, I guess that means Google Analytics are good to go. Failing that they'll see a deluge of complaints that their own website fails to follow the EU directive.
I also recommend reading the StatCounter's response too. They also note the problem with the way hosting locations are (not) covered by the directive, and the fact that the protection from behavioural advertising has got lost along the way.
After a discussion about this at the Birmingham.pm Social meeting last night, we came to the considered opinion that this would likely just be a wait and see game. Until the ICO bring a test case to court, we really won't know how much impact this will have. Which brings us back to the motives for the directives. If you're going to take someone to court, only big business is worth fining. Bankrupting an individual or a small business (ICO now have powers to fine up to £500,000) is going to give the ICO, the government and the EU a lot of really negative press.
Having tackled the problem in the wrong way, those the directives sort to bring into line are only going to use other technologies to retrieve and store the data they want. It may even effect EU hoisting companies, if a sizeable portion of their market decide to register and host their websites in non-EU countries.
In the end the only losers will be EU businesses, and thus the EU economy. Did anyone seriously think these directives through?
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