The Marketing Law blog reports that some companies are very upset about the relaxed enforcement of the EU cookie law in the UK. Not surprisingly the people making the most noise are the companies that developed cookie management tools for websites: the tools that everyone expected would make browsing British sites a painful exercise in clicking “OK” buttons, but that have found little use as the ICO decided at the last minute that simple privacy policies would constitute compliance. One such company has even created a website that invites the ICO to take them to court!
Whilst cynics might suggest that some of these companies were trying to make a quick buck by making the change in legislation appear more onerous that it should have been, the truth is that there has been huge confusion over the cookie laws. As legislators around the world – and particularly in Europe – continue to restrict what can be done on the internet, I’d expect confusion around the laws that are inevitably heading our way. Perhaps the one thing we can learn from this is that building a business around a single piece of legislation is a risky decision.