We have had a fair few questions recently about the new cookie law due to be enforced on the 26th May, so we thought it would be worth pointing out what our recommendation is and how it affects our customers.
Cookies are a type of file stored on your computer, phone or tablet and are used by most websites for things such as tracking users’ movements to social media integration. As most of our clients use Google Analytics all our sites use cookies, in this way, at the very least. What the law stipulates now is that site users must be made aware of this and give their consent for their cookies to be stored.
However there are a hundred shades of grey in terms of how people are interpreting this law and, as very few of the big companies have yet to make any changes, most smaller businesses are pretty complacent about updating their own site – especially when the addition of a clunky opt in box on the homepage could affect the end user experience and create a barrier between the customer and company/brand.
Our recommendation would be to update your website’s terms and conditions / privacy policies to include information about what cookies are and how they are used by the site in question. This, for at least the short term, should be obviously linked to from the homepage. This could be a designed graphic, if you wanted to do something personal / amusing (our approach – see www.turn–key.co) or a discreet pop up box which appears the first time someone visits your site and links them to the updated information.
As highlighted in today’s BBC article though most Government sites are also going to miss the deadline, let alone private businesses, so the general consensus seems to be that as long as you show you are making some kind of effort you will probably be ok.