Saira Nayak
Director of Policy, TRUSTe
@sairanayak
According to the UK ICO’s latest report into cookie compliance they have received only 550 complaints, compared with 53,000 about unwanted marketing communications. TRUSTe’s analysis of the impact of the directive revealed that the majority of users were choosing to accept advertising cookies.
So, after a year of intense discussion and compliance headaches for EU companies, what will be the lasting legacy of this legislation?
I recently asked David Smith, the Deputy Commissioner at the ICO that very question. He responded:
“One of the legacies [for the EU Cookie Directive] is actually for businesses to begin to think before they adopt new technologies, or other new developments, and make sure they’re privacy friendly.
Because actually if you turn the clock back to long before the Directive, leaving cookies on someone’s property without consent or even notice appears quite wrong. You’re putting some piece of text on my system, my device, which identifies me to you. And you’re doing it without even telling me, let alone getting my consent. That doesn’t feel right even though it had become common practice. So, the idea that you should have consent for cookies is actually correct. It’s just a challenge trying to sort of retrofit and rectify the status quo.”
