General Discussions

**lynxus** · 06-20-2011, 05:45 AM

Hi Guys,

Quick question.

Im confused as hell about this new Cookie law in the EU

As far as I can tell, I only need to ask my users if they really want to view my site with cookies if I use them for anything else other than core functionality.

Considering I do not use cookies for tracking, saving details etc.. Its only used for session storage. Surely this classes them as "core" use?

I fear that if someone visits my site and is given a popup demanding they pick yes or no before being able to view my site or being dropped. Im gonna loose potential sales even more so?

I dont fancy getting a lawyer involved but with £500,000 fine, I may need to?

**SiberForum** · 06-20-2011, 11:23 AM

Sometimes it is not very easy to realize what to do, especially when it comes to internet legislative regulation, which is completely senseless to my mind.

Not completely sure I know about the discussed law, but it might be reasonable to insure with giving up a warning about cookies.

**chrishirst** · 06-20-2011, 11:44 AM

Well that was a highly informative post (NOT)

The EU "cookie" ruling is another kneejerk dogs breakfast of unenforceable stupidity
Yet another demonstration of how little politicians and Government actually know anything other than expense claims.
It stands alongside the EU Disabity regulations for a confusing mess of gibberish.

The bottom line is if you store logins and shopping cart information that's fine, but if you use cookies for tracking eg: Google analytics you have to ask the user if they mind.
Not that 75% of the punters will even know what the question is.

**dWhite** · 06-20-2011, 12:01 PM

How long before the US adopts this same concept...

**lynxus** · 06-20-2011, 12:15 PM

I thought as much.

From what I can grasp from it..

It seems that you are OK as long as you only use them for what your site needs to run.

Ive removed Google anayltics and all others.
I now only store 1 cookie and thats the session cookie thats removed after they leave anyway.

I figured its best to at least try and comply rather than not.

With such a fluffy law and what seems to be like EVERY website ive visited not actually following it, I have no clue how they can expect people to know what to do.

Personally , I dont care for Google anaytics etc.

I just use my own tracker that updates a database when a user loads the site.
This doesn't even require a cookie and is pretty accurate just by using IP address and Browser headers as a key.

If anything, This has made matters worse for the user as they no longer have ANY control over what's being tracked.
More and more sites will take this method especially when ipV6 is more widely used for identifying users.

I suppose now would be a good time to update my tracking software and sell it to UK businesses as a way to get round the UK's / EU's stupid laws.

< Insert lots of random profanity here >

-G

**chrishirst** · 06-20-2011, 12:49 PM

I've been using my own tracking system for years which also uses IP, session ID and UA string and also doubles as referrer spam blocking.

**weblover50** · 08-13-2011, 06:17 AM

I know this seems kinda off-topic, but does deleting cookies stored in my pc increase my pc's virtual memory?

**chrishirst** · 08-13-2011, 06:46 AM

No.

Virtual Memory is a contiguous (preferably) block of HD space that is reserved for use as a "swap file". The recommended size is 2.5 times real memory, though Windows will only assign 1.5 times initially.

Cookies are stored in "normal" HD space,

Deleting cookies will however free up HD space as cookies will be taking up more space than you think because of the file cluster sizes, which are dependant on drive size and format.