UK websites have been granted one year by the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) in which to comply with new legislation concerning the use of cookies. It requires website owners to obtain ‘positive’ consent from users, before a cookie is used to retrieve information about their online browsing behaviour.

The revised EU e-Privacy Directive, which becomes law today, means that websites will be moving from an ‘opt-out’ to an ‘opt-in’ in terms of a user’s acceptance of website cookies. We are in the process of finalising a plan of action for complying with the directive; this will outline a number of steps to be taken in the interim, to ensure that our clients’ websites are fully compliant by next year.

We commonly use Google Analytics to track the performance of our websites and online activity through the use of cookies. Using an analytics package (and therefore cookies) is essential for us to be able to determine performance, identify areas for improvement, set goals and ultimately improve our clients’ websites and users’ experiences.

The UK  Government is currently working with leading web browser manufacturers including Microsoft (Internet Explorer), Google (Chrome), Mozilla (Firefox) and Apple (Safari) in order to identify how web browsers could incorporate a more prominent method for users to ‘opt-in’ to cookie usage. This would be the ideal solution to minimise disruption to the user experience.