Mail Online and the online presence of The Department for Transport have all been highlighted as failing to comply with cookie law by an online legal expert.
Writing for The Drum, David Cook, solicitor and online expert for Manchester legal firm Pannone has taken a look at a number of the UK’s most popular websites, following the changes to Cookie Law, which came into effect at the end of May.
Failure to comply with the regulations could see companies hit with a fine of up to £500,000, although it seems that many online sites still fail to meet the regulations, despite a grace period being granted by the Government over a year.
Of the websites he reviewed, a month after the deadline for compliance had passed, Cook found that Mail Online, the most viewed website in the world, had apparently made no changes to its site whatsoever. He said that the site sought to rely on implied consent rather than gaining positive indication from users that they understand and agree to the new terms on cookie use.
The Department for Transport also comes under scrutiny, as one of 75 websites that the ICO has contacted asking for proof that it is moving towards compliance. Cook claims that despite this, the website “appears unchanged”, although it does have a cookie option on its site, amongst many other options.
In conducting his review, Cook also looked at the ft.com, as well as the websites for The Information Commissioner, Channel 4 and The Telegraph.
“It is therefore clear that many sites have either misunderstood the legislation or are flagrantly disregarding it. Regardless, when the ICO have publicly stated that only the most prolific offenders in the most serious of breaches will receive a fine, there currently appears little incentive to properly implement the changes when a token attempt will do for now,” states Cook in summarising his findings.
The full review will appear in the next edition of The Drum magazine, released 20 July.
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I think there are two things going on here. Some websites have deliberately done as little as possible to keep the ICO at bay , often taking the 'implied consent' interpretation to its extreme.
In other cases, people who try to do the right thing, find its not quite as easy as they hoped it would be. At the Cookie Collective we have found that many clients who want to be as cookie legal as possible, find it a struggle.
This in itself does not make it a bad law of course - but it does mean that more time needs to be given to it, but websites will need an incentive to do this - which means the ICO really needs to make an example of someone - ideally a high profile site that has done nothing, as well as one that has not done enough, or is even deliberately misleading. Richard - http://www.cookielaw.org
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"Mail Online, the most viewed website in the world" - really? Does the author perhaps mean most viewed news site? I certainly hope so, or we truly are doomed.
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