What is the new EU Cookie Law?
The new EU cookie law came into effect in May 2011, if you are a UK based business (no matter where your website is hosted) you have until May 26th 2012 to comply. If your website uses cookies then visitors must be informed and given the choice to accept or not.
Will this affect you?
The chances are yes. If your website has third party tracking such as the hugely popular free Google Analytics then your website is using a third party cookie and your visitors should be warned and given the choice to accept or not.
What can you do?
The big analytic companies have stayed mostly quiet to date. Google have said nothing of note on the subject. Adobe and Webtrends, other large suppliers of analytics have simply said seek legal advice.
Many in the industry are suggesting a wait and see approach – will this really be enforced.
Any solution to the problem is going to make web browsing a pain.
Quite simply we think you have the following choices right now:
1. Wait and See approach and do nothing for now.
2. Stop using cookies on May 25th, therefore no Google Analytics. To get any kind of reporting from your website, an alternative will be to rely on analysis of the web server log files.
3. Implement some code, to provide the visitors with a pop up box asking them to accept the cookie. Similar to the website here: http://www.ico.gov.uk/ – this will mean many visitors will not accept your tracking cookie and your analytic reports will be potentially meaningless.
What do we recommend
Sit tight and see what happens – but have a plan. One way to still get meaningful statistics from your website without using cookies is to use your web server log files and run them through a graphical analyzer. We can help with this – call us on 01784 223100 or drop us a line on web@alchemyinternet.net
