Customizing SMF > SMF Coding Discussion
[WIP/BETA] EU cookie law
Arantor:
1. Most mods actually don't use tracking cookies. In fact, there's only a handful of mods that use their own cookies - other than Nibogo's multi quote mod, you're pretty much looking at the analytics and ad mods, and that's more because of the tracking aspect of the analytics and ads code (i.e. Google)
3. Should really be covered as part of the default wording for members, but there's no requirement to guests to do so.
Re British ICO, they acknowledge that they are using session cookies however they are working with the software developers to remove them. If you're not compliant currently, making a good faith effort towards compliance will discourage penalties.
I've opined elsewhere that it may actually be beneficial not to start a session at all for guests. Sure, you lose tracking of what guests are doing 'right now' and lose any ability to judge how many guests are on the site but search engines screw those over anyway, and you'd save a buttload of effort and DB stuff by not doing it.
CircleDock:
--- Quote from: MrPhil on May 20, 2012, 11:15:14 AM ---I agree with @bonzo that it's a mess. It's well-intentioned (stop the invasion of privacy by the use of tracking cookies), but stupidly implemented. My advice is
* Be careful not to add mods which use tracking cookies. Someone please start a list of mods which use potentially illegal tracking cookies?
* If you want to add tracking cookie mods (e.g., for revenue generation), find a way to shut them off in the EU.
* Add highlighted text to the agreement.txt file notifying users that you have some cookies on your site, but they are used only to maintain the session and not to track them.If the EU wants to prosecute you for normal SMF session cookies, just point out all the government sites illegally using cookies (e.g., the British ICO) and publicly demand that they be the first prosecuted. Who knows, you may be the straw that breaks the camel's back and brings down the whole EU! :)
--- End quote ---
I agreed with what you said right up to the highlighted part. The ICO is not acting illegally as it has identified all the cookies it and third-party sites are likely to set and enumerates them on its privacy page. As Arantor has said, they say they're working with their software providers to remove the session cookies. The fact that many UK Government web sites won't be compliant in time doesn't mean that the ICO will give a free pass to those in the private sector.
It's not the EU who would prosecute offenders but the national regulator in the relevant member nation that would act. However with only three countries that have enacted PECR so far - the UK, Denmark and Latvia - the whole thing is a bit of a mess and pretty typical of the EU in general.
live627:
--- Quote ---1. Most mods actually don't use tracking cookies. In fact, there's only a handful of mods that use their own cookies - other than Nibogo's multi quote mod, you're pretty much looking at the analytics and ad mods, and that's more because of the tracking aspect of the analytics and ads code (i.e. Google)
--- End quote ---
Also, many large ADK mods use cookies.
feline:
We have decided to allow no access to the contents before the cookie storage is not accepted.
This switchable option we have implemented in our portal, but no one MUST use it.
That is at least more than SMF and other mod authors make ..
CircleDock:
--- Quote from: live627 on May 20, 2012, 01:22:33 PM ---
--- Quote ---1. Most mods actually don't use tracking cookies. In fact, there's only a handful of mods that use their own cookies - other than Nibogo's multi quote mod, you're pretty much looking at the analytics and ad mods, and that's more because of the tracking aspect of the analytics and ads code (i.e. Google)
--- End quote ---
Also, many large ADK mods use cookies.
--- End quote ---
Adk Portal certainly does (see Subs-Adkfunction.php -> function rewrite_context_html_headers()) but Adk Blog and Adk Advertising do not appear to.
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