I.M. in the U.K with new Cookie Law - What to do?

Unlikely, Dave.

I find this deeply worrying, more so even for those reliant on the likes of Amazon. Technically, it will be Amazon who set the cookie but both them and the site owner will be responsible. Pop ups will simply kill the affiliate niche store model, it seems to me.

I don't think those who thought up this bright idea have any idea of the wider implications ...and only the UK will bother to enforce it, of course.

I'm awaiting developments with a due sense of dread...

Peter

Hi

From the ICO Document

"An organisation based in the UK is likely to be subject to the requirements of the Regulations even if their website is technically hosted overseas. Organisations based outside of Europe with websites designed for the European market, or providing products or services to customers in Europe, should consider that their users in the UK and Europe will clearly expect information and choices about cookies to be provided."

Hope you got refundable tickets :-)

Happy New Year people.

GW

I hope I speak for all of Scotland + my UK (fuzz the EU).....

When I say............................

You may take our taxes.... BUT YOU'LL NEVER TAKE OUR COOKIES!!!!!!!!!

I agree.....the U.K. is the E.U.'s bitch!

-Dave

You should never mess with another mans banana :p

F%$king typical, EU sucks, uk should have told them to F-Off

Hey Fin

You my friend are a F&*(%$g genius!!!

If i don't give the Inland revenue a cookie to follow me and i refuse to accept their cookie to keep track of me, does that mean i don't have to send them any money and i can use this law to tell them to poke off :-)

Nice idea i suppose

Happy New Year

GW

Would it be possible to unify against it? Like the French did with the wheel clamps?

Don't know if you're from UK, but here they 'goldplate' any BS from Brussels, i.e. they enforce it and add some cherries on top. France who effectivelly make alot of the rules to be enforced ignore them!!

You can see the bind we get ourselves in!

Anyway I'll always be British, but have now decided after years of being 'harassed' by my US wife to leave and always saying no we'll stay, that I want us to leave these jewelled islands for new pastures (untouched by the eu). I have been thinking about getting out, not because or UK, but because of eu for several years now and this is really the final nail as I want my business to thrive, not be suffocated and the eu is no place to be in business. The UK needs to decide if it wants to be par tof this or plan it's own business friendly environment. It want the next 'facebook', but with the yolk from brussels will never get it, as anyone who wants to really get ahead in this game will go to California or to the Far East. I love this place, but I think my children will not call it home

There are lots of ways to get around this. For instance you can have a UK company and an offshore company and the UK company invoices the offshore company.

They only care if you dodge the tax so dont dodge the tax.

No, they'll just find some poor sap and throw the book at him/her - probably some teenager working away in his bedroom on a site that uses a Google Analytics cookie to track visitors, and hitting him with a fine that will take longer to pay off than his student loan - in a concerted effort to scare the c**p out of everyone in to complying.


Big corporations, by and large, will get away with it because their expensive legal firms have the ability to go over the legislation line-by-line, get judgements in their favour, appeal any judgements that go against them all the way to the European Court, and establish a body of case law that could be used by everyone else to find loopholes to exploit.


The teenager, on the other hand, will be advised by his legal aid solicitor to plead guilty and ask the judge for time to pay (or get his parents to sell their house and pay the fine for him).


Americans needn't worry too much about this for the time being. You guys stand a better chance of seeing Elvis Presley stacking the shelves at Wal-Mart than being prosecuted for anything to do with the Internet in the UK. However it's only a matter of time before your government brings out their own version of this badly thought out piece of legislation, just like it's only a matter of time before our government brings out its own version of SOPA or has one imposed on it by the EU.


It strikes me that most politicians would like to turn the clock back to the early 1990's when the only thing you could realistically use the Internet for was e-mail - except this time it will be quicker, and you can make a phone call at the same time, because so many people now have broadband.


Or am I being extremely cynical?

Read documents about the law on net.I think there you find more informations.

Hi peoples,
I have already posted this suggestion in the other EU law thread and it looks as if this thread is still alive & kicking too. I am knackered out thinking about all the problems that this crazy law offers but now want to focus on ideas for a solution.

I hate pop-ups myself when navigating other sites, so creating a pop-up to explain to visitors about this new law & what all these BS pop-ups mean is like rubbing salt to the wound.

Do you think programming a live-presenter that strolls onto the site page to both subtly & briefly explain what we want the viewer to know about these changes will help? Rather than adding more pop-ups to this pop-up insanity to explain things.

It could be a way to counteract the negative effects, re-instate trust with our visitors who may be scared off & confused by all this new pop-up culture and may also be a means for programmers (or whomever designs these things) to capitalise on our misfortunes.

If so, can you please deliver one on my desk first thing Monday morning? lol

i have been thinking about this in the context of my amazon and epn sites. These are pure niche stores.

I have two cookie issues as far as I am aware.

First, there is the 'non-intrusive' statcounter cookie. Worst case scenario is to remove statcounter, of course.

Second there is the epn/amazon third party cookie, ie it is set by them not me. No doubt epn and amazon will insist on a pop up when a user clicks through from my site. If that's the case then there is nothing I can do about that and I just have to accept it. At least I won't be breaking the law, I suppose.

I do wonder what the solution will be for Adsense.

I also hope amazon don't go the same way they did with affiliates in California...

Peter

LOL, have you read the comments if you keep clicking cancel. Brilliant

That's epic! Thanks for the laugh......

A common ideaology about this is 'how are they going to enfore this' or 'there's too many of us to conquer'. My thought is (as mentioned before by another dude), if somebody submits a complaint the gov't has to take action. It will clearly be a against the law. If you complain to the police that somebody has assaulted you, they have to investigate.

Regarding Google Analytics, that is a MAJOR concern. What is this law trying to accomplish? Surely educating the public would be far better than smacking down a bunch of business owners. Now you are introducing more red tape and departments whose responsibility it is to monitor and act upon violations.

Bus wankers!

Cheers,

Dave

The popup about cookies being delicious was funny

Cool share

We cant, Problem is i cant pack up my bags and leave the EU neither which is a complete pain the arse. Just as I started IM and affiliate its already becoming a game of confusion, rigid laws and headaches. If backlinking and getting traffic wasn't hard enough we all have to worry about being put in prison for a small file.

Affiliate marketing / adsense will be over for me if it becomes as confusing as I think its going to be. Ill have to shift to offering my services for hire.

So if the worst comes to the worst, we set up an offshore company which holds the rights to UK websites. Each person is given an account allowing them to "share" the profits of the site, however ownership is retained in Lilliput or whichever land we wish to inhabit.

Keep calm and carry on.

Can I go to the pub now?

TC

If only.........

You haven't been breaking the law, the law comes into affect tomorrow. They were just telling sites to get ready. Don't stick your head in the sand though, even though there are reports that ICO won't be fining anyone as long as you show some compliance, things can change.