Returning to an area I have previously done a number of blogs on which is Cookies and the Privacy and Electronic Communications Regulations (PECR) which although it came into force on May 25th 2011, the enforcement was postponed for 1 year and the Information Commissioners Office (ICO) will start to enforce it from the 25th of this month. Any website found guilty of using technologies to track a user's browsing behaviour without their consent or sending unwanted marketing emails to consumers could face a fine of up to £500,000.
The law involves a proactive approach to cookies with sites having to ask for permission for cookies to be used before any cookie is sent to the browser. The ICO's own site has a consent mechanism in place which has affected the site see the article "Cookie acceptances plummet when ICO requests permission, figures show" http://www.out-law.com/page-12042 on the out-law website.
An article on the BBC today "Cookies: Majority of government sites to miss deadline" http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-18090118 shows that even through the government is responsible for passing and implementing the law which is based on an EU directive Directive 2002/58 on Privacy and Electronic Communications and the amendment's introduced by Directive 2009/136 which means that the requirements have been know about for 3 years, the government own sites are going to fail to meet the deadline this month despite the 1 year period of grace given between the law coming in to force and actually been enforced.
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