Cookie options - or the lack of them
We're all used to having to reject unwanted cookies whenever visiting any website and to choosing whether to avoid using American-type websites, which don't offer any options to reject any cookies at all.
But I've just found myself needing to buy a specialist item from a UK company whose UK website (ending in .co.uk) wasn't working properly yet but referred me to its "main site" whose name ends in .com. That "main site" offers one no chance to reject any of the numerous cookies that they use (and list) if one refuses simply to "accept" all their cookies but follows the "learn more" button on the cookie banner. Yet one of the cookies they list seemingly claims to allow customer choice about cookies, being (somewhat ambiguously) labelled:
"USER_ALLOWED_SAVE_COOKIE Indicates whether a customer allowed to use cookies."
I went looking for an example of the infinitely more familiar and manageable cookie options list that I've seen and used so often but the first UK selling website that I tried (which I've used for years) now sends one off to a site called https://www.allaboutcookies.org/ - which discusses this at great length.
As far as I could gather, our right to opt out of cookies comes from the 2002 e-Privacy Directive, as helpfully interpreted by the ECJ in October 2019 to require that "Storing cookies requires internet users’ active consent" (not just pre-ticked checkboxes). That EU law presumably still applies in the UK and (if I read correctly) to all websites which sell to EU customers.
Is there any simpler guide to what and which businesses must do about imposing cookies on visitors to their websites?
But I've just found myself needing to buy a specialist item from a UK company whose UK website (ending in .co.uk) wasn't working properly yet but referred me to its "main site" whose name ends in .com. That "main site" offers one no chance to reject any of the numerous cookies that they use (and list) if one refuses simply to "accept" all their cookies but follows the "learn more" button on the cookie banner. Yet one of the cookies they list seemingly claims to allow customer choice about cookies, being (somewhat ambiguously) labelled:
"USER_ALLOWED_SAVE_COOKIE Indicates whether a customer allowed to use cookies."
I went looking for an example of the infinitely more familiar and manageable cookie options list that I've seen and used so often but the first UK selling website that I tried (which I've used for years) now sends one off to a site called https://www.allaboutcookies.org/ - which discusses this at great length.
As far as I could gather, our right to opt out of cookies comes from the 2002 e-Privacy Directive, as helpfully interpreted by the ECJ in October 2019 to require that "Storing cookies requires internet users’ active consent" (not just pre-ticked checkboxes). That EU law presumably still applies in the UK and (if I read correctly) to all websites which sell to EU customers.
Is there any simpler guide to what and which businesses must do about imposing cookies on visitors to their websites?
