new cookie anti-tracking laws in the EU

[HunkyLuke]

BBC reported that from 25 May, new European laws and directives come into effect which say that "explicit consent" is required when tracking users via cookies.

The new rules come from the European e-Privacy directive, and attemps to deal with behavioural advertising.

The directive demands that users be fully informed about the information being stored in cookies and told why they see particular adverts.

Specifically excluded by the directive are cookies that log what people have put in online shopping baskets.

However, the directive is likely to have an impact on the more general use of cookies that remember login details and enable people to speed up their use of sites they visit regularly.

Behavioural advertising is mainly done by large advertising companies, where they track your surfing behaviour from one site to the next, eventually building up a profile and using that info to display ads on new sites based on your previous surfing habits. Just think about how many sites use AdWords, and how the AdWord servers can collect and easily compile info on your surfing habits if it chooses.

I think this is a great new law, but of course like every other internet law, I really don't see how they will be able to enforce it other than big lawsuits against well known companies after the fact. But if your company is not located or branched in the EU, then what can they do?

[RDude]

Yes, I would think this law will be hard to enforce. I have to wonder though - will this affect affiliate url tracking cookies as well? If so, how does one get around it?

[HunkyLuke]

As far as I can read, it won't affect affiliate cookies as these are cookies are not being used for behavioural tracking, they are simply being used to store cart information, which is specifically excluded in these new rules.

And don't most affiliate programs track by more than cookies now? I know NATS tracks by session, IP and cookie. Does anyone know if this is also true for CCBill, Epoch or other affiliate systems?

[RDude]

Thanks for the info Luke.

Good questions. I'd like to see what the scoop is on CCBill, Epoch and other programs too.

[PUMPaul]

For CCBill the sponsor has options in the set up to track by cookie (and can set the length) and/or IP address for 24 hours. To use the IP tracking it must be set by the sponsor and has a max time of 24 hours.

[HunkyLuke]

Where is CCBill these days? I have been trying to contact Gary for nearly 2 months now, but he is not responding to any of my emails. I would love to hear directly from them and from other sites that offer / run affiliate systems.

If anti-cookie laws come into effect, Paul's response would suggest that CCBill affiliates will be S.O.L. if the program owner opts for only tracking by cookies. That's just plain BAD!

[HunkyLuke]

BBC ran another story about this today, under the heading "Governments 'not ready' for new European privacy law", saying that the euro governments are not ready and will not be ready to enforce the new directives.

No European government has yet drawn up the guidelines for how the ePrivacy directive will be enforced....The technical solutions simply aren't ready yet. It is a highly complex area and needs a huge amount of work

Even the UK government has admitted that, come May 25th, they will not be acting on any public complaints over this matter, yet! The spokesperson said "We are not saying that we won't take action. We expect firms to be working towards solutions,"

So it looks like this is something that will happen eventually, but not in May. I still think its important to get feedback from ccbill, epoch and the other billing companies and 3rd party affiliate systems. Best figure this one out while we have time, instead of scrambling after the fact trying to repair broken systems!