Obtaining EU end-users’ consent
3 August 2015
You may have seen a lot of popup banners in the last year on websites telling you that they're using cookies. While mostly pointless, and definitely annoying, this is now a legal requirement for all websites serving content to EU citizens.
While most of our websites do not use cookies for tracking, only for 'essential' functions such as a shopping basket, the inclusion of third party plugins such as "Google AdSense" and "Google Analytics" will cause cookies to be set, and these may need to be announced.
The current best practice is to have a simple link called 'cookies' or 'privacy policy' where you describe what cookies are being set and why. So no pop-up or click-away banners.
We will be starting to add this information to websites serving Google AdSense advertising banners, and then reviewing websites that are using Google Analytics or similar services where cookies are used to track and remember visitors.
Does it affect me?
If your website is exclusively targeting non-EU states then you are not required to take any action, unless a third party such as Google makes it a requirement.
If your business does not have a presence in the EU then you can probably ignore the requirement.
Where your website is hosted or who owns the website or content is not relevant. The requirement applies according to the location of the "end user".