Cookie anyone?

I have just read this on Silicon.com and was wondering what everyone feels about the issue of Cookies and the possible ban on them by EU countries??

Quote: Opening the lid on the cookie debate - The EU: tough on cookies, tough on the causes of cookies - and completely wrong...

Cookies: love 'em or hate 'em? Do they make the web a better place for you to be, or do they infringe your privacy?

That debate is at the heart of recent discussions within the EU, and the weight of opinion among the eurocrats has come down firmly on the side of the privacy advocates.

Web users frequently do not know when cookies are installed on their machine, and they are not told to what purpose the data they generate will be put - hence the EU proposal to ban companies from using them unless "the explicit, well-informed and freely given consent of the user concerned has been obtained" (as the proposal puts it).

For once, that sounds like the lawmakers have come to a reasonable conclusion. So why have there been the usual cat calls of complaint from various parts of the industry?

The Internet Advertising Bureau (IAB) for one claims this will cost UK business £11bn - perhaps a spurious figure, but its members clearly think there's a big problem here.

And indeed there is - and it's in the very definition of what constitutes "explicit, well-informed and freely given consent".

silicon.com currently asks its users if they want to download a cookie onto their machine, but we dont say precisely what we'll do with the data. Our users (being, on the whole, technically literate) know why we offer that service (it's a simple matter of making logging in easier) but we dont explicitly state that. Have we done enough according to the above definition?

Probably, but we don't know for sure. There are other issues: We use a third party to serve our banner ads; if someone clicks on one, and ends up at a destination which installs a cookie without the user's consent, would we be liable for contravening the legislation? Or is it the company which served the ad? Or the company which bought it? When and where must that consent be asked for?

There are answers to these questions of course, but it might help give some idea of the reasonably complex implications of this simple change to the law - and goes some way to explaining the extra costs involved.

And let's not forget, cookies can be a good thing for web users. If your average, non-technical punter went to Amazon.com and suddenly received a warning that a cookie was about to be downloaded, they may well refuse it (having read horror stories of viruses and suchlike) - but then they'd have real difficulty using Amazon's shopping basket. They'd not benefit from any special, tailored offers the next time they logged on.

A quick glance at the machine on which this article is being written shows that nearly 50 cookies have been downloaded this month alone. Would a user really want to be bothered with some kind of warning every time this happens? Maybe, but not definitely.

It's always difficult to balance the needs of business against the desire to protect individuals' privacy. But it must be stated that cookies really aren't used in a 'Big Brother' way - it's simply not technically possible to capture as much information as some people claim. This proposal also places too much onus on website owners and in particular the dot-coms, many of whom could well do without the extra expense of conforming to the demands of the legislation right now.

So we support the IAB's decision to continue lobbying MEPs in the hope that the proposed change to the law will be reversed. Vested interest maybe, but we think it's actually in the best interests of the web community as a whole.