Cookie question

[Rapscallion]

Got a question raised by running another forum. There's a claim that the EU isn't allowing cookies on commercial sites, ending up by saying that cookies have been illegal from servers hosted in the EU since 1/1/06.

Anyone heard about this, or should I be tipped off by the claim in the same email that cookies report back to the pentagon?

Rapscallion

[Pedersen]

Well, Raps, I like to think I would hear about such things. I've heard nothing.

It's possible, though, that I've been secluding myself from some vital flow of information, so I turned to Google, and did some searching. Back in 2001, the EU was considering making it a directive that all sites would have to notify users if cookies were in use, and allow them to decline/delete them.

That directive never passed. That's the only reference I could find about it at all.

I'm not omnipotent, I could be wrong (and have been badly wrong in the past), but based on what I was able to find, I would toss this email into the bit bucket, and not give it another thought.

Add in the comment about all cookies reporting to the Pentagon, and I'd say you've got yourself a certifiable crack pot on your hands. Cookies don't report squat to anybody, since they are just pieces of text. Yes, they can be used to track you, but that's your browser, not the cookie.

Cookies wouldn't report to the Pentagon if you gave them free first class airfare, a megaphone, and a guaranteed audience of everybody who works and visits there for the whole day.

[Seshat]

Cookies wouldn't report to the Pentagon if you gave them free first class airfare, a megaphone, and a guaranteed audience of everybody who works and visits there for the whole day.

(sniff)

Pedersen, you just completely wrecked the premise of my next book. :cry:

It was going to be the true story of the great conspiracy between Tim Burners-Lee and the World Wide Web Consortium, the Pentagon and the Illuminati. And you ruined it.

[Rapscallion]

He pointed out http://www.theregister.co.uk/2001/12/07/spam_out_cookies_tolerated_data/ as being a source of information. The Directive still has to be approved by the European Parliament before it becomes EU law.

Evil capitalists managed to delay this legislation for several years,
but it is now in force. The EU and Google are still in dispute about
the use of EU-residents' user data being used by Google, which is of
course extra-EU, but the EU considers that it has a monopoly position
and thus is subject to EU law. The case continues.

I have cookies disabled, and am able to access (and shop at) 99% of EU
sites. The remaining 1% don't get my business.
The actual legislation is online (in 21 languages) but the europa.eu
website is such a total mess I couldn't find it. So you're not the only
one.... I searched "Cookies" under europa.eu 's search engine, and it
comes up with masses of stuff. However, you will note that some people
have (finally) been prosecuted for abuse of cookies.


Sounds like he's got a wardrobe with some interesting silver headgear.

Rapscallion

[Rapscallion]

http://www.accessifyforum.com/viewtopic.php?t=8400 suggests it's a law for real etc etc etc. A simple privacy page should be enough, if I read it right.

Sounds like complete bollocks to me.

Rapscallion

[Cutenoob]

To quote you, Raps:

He's a cock he's a cock he's a cock.

cute