{"id":129,"date":"2019-04-18T14:30:31","date_gmt":"2019-04-18T03:30:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.onlineinvent.com.au\/blog\/?p=129"},"modified":"2019-02-09T03:49:28","modified_gmt":"2019-02-08T16:49:28","slug":"eu-laws-and-website-cookies","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.onlineinvent.com.au\/blog\/eu-laws-and-website-cookies\/","title":{"rendered":"EU Laws and Website Cookies"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Most of us are <\/g>aware of the fact that practically all websites use cookies which in essence are mini data files that store information in web browsers. Certain websites contain a few while some contain hundreds of them. Nevertheless, due to the rampant abuse of cookies by some sites the EU came up with a piece of privacy legislation that was promptly dubbed as \u2018The Cookie Law\u2019 which required websites to obtain prior consent from visitors to the site if they wanted to store or retrieve any form of data on an electronic device which included smart-phones and tablets apart from computers. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Despite\nthe fact that the law was seen as \u2018impractical\u2019 by most quarters,\nthe intention of the law was however well placed as it was designed\nto protect the privacy of consumers by making them aware of how data\nrelated to them is collected, consolidated and subsequently used\nonline. In essence the law gave consumers the choice to either allow\ntheir information to be stored or not. \n<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The\nEU Directive which was eventually adopted by the entire EU contingent\nas of May 2011 in essence provided consumers the rights to refuse the\nuse of cookies which inevitably reduces the level of their online\nprivacy privileges. From there on, EU countries singularly updated\ntheir own domestic laws towards compliancy, for example in Britain,\ntheir Privacy and Electronic Communications Regulations were updated\naccordingly. \n<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The\nimpact on businesses due to this new \u2018cookie law\u2019 meant various\nthings, as web owners needed to make certain that their sites were\ncompliant with the law that required them to make the necessary\nchanges. Failing to which meant they risked enforcement action from\nappointed regulating agencies such as the ICO (Information\nCommissioners’ Office) in the UK. \n<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Fines\nwere imposed for exceptional cases while some operators were slapped\nwith more serious consequences for non-compliance. Although there is\nplenty of evidence that show consumers in general avoid interacting\nwith websites that they have reason to believe puts their privacy at\nrisk, the use of cookies is generally unavoidable as most websites\nneed to use cookies to a certain degree in order for the site to\nfunction normally. \n<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The\nEUs decision to put forth this legislation was considered unnecessary\nby most as there were so many other ways to handle privacy issues\nwhich were totally disregarded by the commission that came up with\nthe law. The impact of this law affected SMEs and small businesses\nmore than it affected anybody else, as on the consumers side, things\nbefore and after the law was passed remained practically unchanged\nmaking the whole exercise a waste of time and resources for website\nowners. \n<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Some surveys indicate that more than 80 % of digital marketers<\/a> think that the \u2018Cookie Law\u2019 is detrimental to online sales which will have a drastic and negative impact on cross border economics. Nevertheless, the law has been passed and people on both sides of the legislation are required to adhere. Changes to this piece of legislation are unlikely to happen anytime soon.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Most of us are aware of the fact that practically all websites use cookies which in essence are mini data files that store information in web browsers. Certain websites contain a few while some contain hundreds of them. Nevertheless, due to the rampant abuse of cookies by some sites the EU came up with a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":130,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1,17],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-129","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-all-topics","category-internet-regulation"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.onlineinvent.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/129","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.onlineinvent.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.onlineinvent.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.onlineinvent.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.onlineinvent.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=129"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.onlineinvent.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/129\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":132,"href":"https:\/\/www.onlineinvent.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/129\/revisions\/132"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.onlineinvent.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/130"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.onlineinvent.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=129"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.onlineinvent.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=129"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.onlineinvent.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=129"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}