

Ask HN: Whats the situation with the cookie law? - gearoidoc

I heard it was defeated recently but can't find any article to back this up. Do we still need to show this brainless notice on our website?
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petercooper
Firstly, I am not a lawyer and this is not legal advice.

In the UK, I assume? It wasn't defeated _as such_ but the ICO moved the
goalposts a bit and also stepped back in their ambitions to enforce it.

The key event was in this post on the ICO site:
[http://www.ico.gov.uk/news/current_topics/changes-to-
cookies...](http://www.ico.gov.uk/news/current_topics/changes-to-cookies-on-
our-website.aspx) \- the actual guidelines didn't change but ICO's own
interpretation of them did which essentially clarified the position as being
more open than assumed.

Earlier, it was assumed that you couldn't set any cookies at all until you had
received explicit consent, but it has turned out the ICO is OK with you
setting cookies as long as you're doing it sensibly and, ideally, notifying
users that this is happening. If a user is notified and then continues to use
your site, this can be considered to be "implicit consent."

The ICO has also not been particularly stringent in its enforcement. I read an
enforcement document of theirs recently which was as hardcore as checking a
few of the "top 200 most popular" UK sites for compliance but without any
actual repercussions.

So unless you're doing something naughty (invasive tracking, lots of cross-
site stuff) or are a popular site, you're unlikely to ever get contacted about
this.. and even if you do, enforcement is likely to be slow and you could
easily resolve it prior to any trouble occurring. This now appears to be the
stance most developers are taking.

~~~
gearoidoc
Thanks for that.

We're actually based in Ireland but regardless of how different jurisdictions
will define their cookie law, I'm guessing the enforcement across the board
will be, as you say, "slow", if not non-existant (provided no malicious
behaviour).

