How are UK retailers (and others) responding to the E-privacy directive?

Only one month from today to comply with the new law

Value/Importance: [rating=5]

Recommended link: Ecomplished survey

Our commentary on the E-privacy directive - deadline 26th May

We’re getting close to the deadline for compliance with this law, it’s a month away today.

In previous posts we’ve alerted readers to the latest guidance from the ICO on implementation for the cookie law and different solutions (Solution #1, Solution #2 and Solution #3).

With a month to go, here is a timely survey of 100 retailers’ response to the directive published by Ecomplished. The survey suggests:

• 29% of UK retailers believe on-site 3rd party cookies are someone else’s problem
• 34% plan to use compulsory pop-ups for opt-in
• 47% believe their cookies are non-intrusive and therefore exempt

Implications of the survey results

The Ecomplished survey suggests if you haven’t taken action, you won’t be alone, which could be reassuring? 39% believe all the cookies are non intrusive and so unnecessary and 23% are the responsibility of a third-party. It’s likely that both of these groups won’t be compliant.

However, around two-thirds of businesses have carried out a cookie audit and updated their privacy policies. We’d recommend this is the minimum you do and review solutions.

The next level is informed or implicit consent with this survey suggesting that we are going to see a lot more pop-up windows (34% compulsory opt-in, 54% non-compulsory).  So the web is going to be much uglier and less usable this time next month in many case.

It’s also commercially perilous since this recent Econsultancy survey suggests that only 23% of users will accept cookies:

Here’s an example of BT’s laudable (or do I mean laughable) attempt at compliance - simples 🙂 :

Overall businesses

Looking across all businesses, Econsultancy have this 141 page report on business response and recommendations which mainly looks at understanding and reading of the ICO report, not compliance approaches, but its still recommended reading.

Econsultancy also have an interview with The ICO’s Dave Evans on EU cookie law compliance which has further guidance.

Interesting/concerning times. All the best…