New legislation is making sure we don't store information about website users unless it follows the latest directives.

Some info on the EU regulations with respect to cookie storage

We are confident that the way our CMS currently uses cookies is in line with the requirements provided that clients have appropriate privacy policies or notes on cookies on their websites.

The grey area, affecting ourselves and our clients, is the use of third-party cookies for analytics - i.e. because Google Analytics uses cookies and these are 'third party', any and all websites using Google Analytics will need to have an appropriate measure in place to comply with the requirements. It may be sufficient to amend privacy policies / terms and conditions of use, but too be sure we feel that more action will be required later.

This blog entry from Paul Boag summarises it pretty well:

http://boagworld.com/news/do-you-need-to-worry-about-the-cookie-crisis/

The ICO provides a PDF document giving guidelines with respect to the new cookies regulations (attached) and more complete detail is held here:

http://www.ico.gov.uk/for_organisations/privacy_and_electronic_communications.aspx

A couple of weeks before Christmas the ICO produced a news release on how they view the UK's implementation of the requirements going, which is basically 'not very well'. That release is here and contains a link to their full report at the 6-month point of the implementation of the regulations:

http://www.ico.gov.uk/news/latest_news/2011/must-try-harder-on-cookies-compliance-says-ico-13122011.aspx

This is law, but there is a 'lead in' period of 12 months dating from 26th May last year (2011), so no-one can be prosecuted before 26th May this year (2012) unless they do not have a implementation plan in place to be in a position to comply with the requirements by 26th May.

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