When are cookie notifications necessary?

The Cookie legislation has been in force since June 2012, but despite the fact that it has been such a long time, there are still many uncertainties. Perhaps this will provide some clarity.

What exactly are Cookies?

Cookies are small files that are left on your computer when you visit a website. This means you will be ‘recognised’ on your next visit. That sounds worse than it is, because in fact only your computer is recognized. Thanks to these files, the website ‘knows’, for example, which pages you have previously visited, or which items you have placed in a shopping cart.

Often there is no ‘foul intent’ at play and the web owner only wants you to easily find your way around his or her site and have a better experience with its content.

But sometimes it goes further than just that. It can happen that unknown advertising companies collect as much information as possible about Internet users unnoticed and without permission, and many people see this – rightly – as an invasion of their privacy. It is mainly because of 3rd party cookies that cookies have a bad name. For example, many news sites have added a Facebook ‘like’ button. By means of a cross-website cookie (third-party cookie), Facebook immediately knows who you are when you click on it (and this way Facebook also knows what you like).

And now the MPs are again working on a new Cookie Law update, what can change?

The most important change may be that cookies placed for tracking statistics no longer need to be reported. However, the statistical systems must keep the data anonymously and this data may only be used for their own purposes. This poses a problem for most websites as they use Google Analytics. However, Google Analytics has now been upgraded and it is possible to anonymize the data and indicate that it should not be shared. It appears that these settings will be in accordance with the new cookie legislation. But this too remains to be seen.

When should you report Cookies?

Even though the Cookie legislation has been in force since June 2012, there is still a lot of uncertainty. But in broad terms you can now say that you should warn about Cookies if:

you use Google Analytics or Google Maps,
Apply Social Media to the site. Such as the buttons or embedding boxes and YouTube videos,

A cookie is also required when logging in, to prevent you from having to look up your password again on your next visit. However, no Cookie Notification is required for this.

When should you warn in advance about Cookies?

If privacy-sensitive actions are still taken with the information obtained via innocent cookies, permission must be given in advance.

Prevention is better than cure.

Are you doing nothing? Then you are officially in violation of the current cookie legislation, but since a change in the law is coming, there is little chance that OPTA will issue fines.

Create a document that you can link to in the footer of your website. That is the easiest and most common method, as long as the information is easy to find.

In any case, provide the following information:

Which Cookies are involved?
What is done by whom with the data obtained?
Are the Cookies used to create profiles?
What type of information is collected?
The profiles are used to offer targeted advertising and/or the user’s surfing behavior is tracked.

For WordPress sites, there are several elegant ways to implement these cookie notifications.