EU slams its own cookies advice

Companies which are struggling to come to terms with the new cookies law can take comfort – even the EU’s own data protection watchdog claims the advice has been shoddy.
Amendments to the EU’s Privacy & Electronic Communications Directive now force website owners to obtain users’ consent to cookies in order to track consumers’ behaviour.
But Peter Hustinx, the European Data Protection Supervisor (EDPS), claims EU Commissioner Neelie Kroes has offered inconsistent advice to website owners on how they should obtain users’ consent.
Last month Kroes said European companies had a year to create a uniform way for Web users to opt out of being tracked by cookies. She said the Commission would take action if the industry did not standardise opt outs in that time. The 12-month amnesty was backed by the UK’s Information Commissioner Christopher Graham.
Yet Hustinx claims the self-regulation methods do not comply with the directive and has criticised Kroes’ support for ‘do not track’ measures that allow users to request websites not to monitor their activity.
The industry is rolling out a self-regulatory framework for behavioural ads – supported by a privacy icon – which is the result of a collaborative effort by the entire online advertising sector, including IAB Europe, the World Federation of Advertisers, the European Advertising Standards Alliance, the Direct Marketing Association and the Incorporated Society for British Advertisers (ISBA).
“These [advertising] associations have in fact failed to implement the new consent requirement,” Hustinx said in a speech at Edinburgh University. “At the same time, she expressed support for a US driven ‘do not track’ initiative that – although valuable – also seems to fall short of the … Directive requirements.
Unfortunately, this also raises doubts on the position of the European Commission on this subject, Hustinx said, adding that he wanted the Commission to “ensure” that the directive requirements were “fully respected”.
“Systematic tracking and tracing of consumer behaviour online is a highly intrusive practice and now rightly subject to more stringent requirements,” Hustinx said in his speech. “Although initiatives for increased transparency and consumer control in the online environment are most welcome, this should not result in a limitation of consumer rights. The Commission should avoid any ambiguity as to its determination in making sure that these rights are delivered in the European Union,” Hustinx stressed.
Hustinx said Internet users needed more “transparency, fairness and control” over privacy settings in web browsers in order to set their own preferences. This should be combined with a policy whereby everyone’s settings are originally set to reject third party cookies until the user decides otherwise.

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