More paws in the cookie jar
Jinfo Blog

By Tim Buckley Owen

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Implementing the European Union cookie Directive could result in a plummeting of cookie use – and now the EU is getting its teeth into Do Not Track legislation as well.

A decline was only to be expected once websites were forced to ask their visitors whether they minded having cookies planted on them – but latest figures from the United Kingdom privacy watchdog the Information Commissioner’s Office may come as a bit of a shock. Following a Freedom of Information request that it keep track of acceptance of its own cookies, both before and after implementing the new rule, the ICO has now reported a staggering 90% drop in the number of recorded visits to its site.

As an ICO spokeswoman told the Out-Law newsletter, the drop might have been more severe than the average because ICO visitors were likely to be more privacy aware. But even a drop of half that amount must have sites that depend on cookies for their customer research pondering seriously.

Now, fired up by the Privacy and Electronic Communications Directive, the EU is getting very interested in Do Not Track legislation of the kind being contemplated in the United States. In a speech last month railing against member states’ slow adoption of the Directive, Commissioner Neelie Kroes pointed out that there were plenty of other ways besides cookies to track people’s movements, and that a “broader discussion” of the issues was needed.

Self-regulatory efforts were part of the mix where privacy was concerned, she said, but the Commission needed to look beyond just cookies and specific sectors. Do Not Track could help it do this – and she challenged the industry to come up with a standard within 12 months.

She was speaking at a workshop on Online Tracking Protection & Browsers, organised in Brussels by the University of Berkeley and the Amsterdam University Institute for Information Law. Reporting the event, the privacy and civil rights lobby group European Digital Rights also highlighted remarks by United States Federal Trade Commissioner Julie Brill that any standard had to represent a persistent choice – citing one US case where an opt-out offered by an online company lasted only “several days”.

Commissioner Brill was particularly exercised by the mobile market. Of the top 30 mobile apps, she said, 22 didn’t have a privacy policy – and the ones that did didn’t make them particularly easy to find.

You can still use cookies for essential things like remembering what a customer has in their shopping basket. Beyond that, though, anyone with a business intelligence strategy that depends on knowing what all their customers are doing online will need to have a serious rethink.

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