EU admits cookie advice is unclear
The EU Commission’s data protection supervisor has admitted that advice given about cookies was inconsistent and unclear.
Recent changes to the EU’s Privacy & Electronic Communications Directive means that organisations need to get permission before storing or retrieving information on users computers, including an organisation’s own cookies, third-party ones and cookies which track consumers’ online behaviour for online behavioural advertising (OBA). Organisations have a year to put the changes in place.
The Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) UK has stressed that while the policy does not come in place until next year, it will investigate serious breaches during this time.
The pan-European industry is developing a self-regulatory framework which alerts people of the use of OBA with a privacy icon and allows them to opt out.
Peter Hustinx, data protection supervisor for the EU Commission, has suggested that this does not comply with the directive, and is calling for all cookies to be denied unless permission is given. He said that advice given by EU commissioner Neelie Kroes on gaining consent to place and use cookies on people’s computers was ambiguous.