How Does The EU Cookie Law Affect You?

On 26th May 2012, a new EU Cookie Law will come into force for all individuals and businesses residing in the EU zone.

If you use “non-essential” cookies on your website, from this date you will be required to notify visitors that cookies are being used on the site and offer the option for visitors to reject them.

EU Cookie Law 2012 | Non Essential Cookies

Non essential… but yummy cookies!

What are “non-essential” cookies?
Non-essential cookies are those which your site does not require their use to operate effectively. Examples of non-essential cookies are;

Google Analytics
Google Adwords
Banner Re-targetting advertising

Essential cookies
If your website is an online store which plants cookies in order for visitors to add items to a shopping cart for example, these are essential cookies and outside the scope of the new legislation.

However, if you ALSO use non-essential cookies, you will need to comply!

So how do you comply?
There are 2 free WordPress plugins you can install which will ensure your website is compliant.

PLUGIN #1: EU COOKIE DIRECTIVE
This plugin displays a message at the top of your website and also informs you which cookies you have dropped from inside the dashboard

This is the plugin that I have installed on this website

PLUGIN #2: COOKIE CONTROL
This installs an obvious, yet unobtrusive triangle at the bottom corner of your screen which visitors click to accept or reject.

Remember: it doesn’t matter if your website is for business or personal (non commercial) use. If it is dropping cookies you must comply with this EU Cookie Law from 26th May 2012.

This blog is a summary of a much more comprehensive post from Heart Internet. Please take a few minutes to read Heart Internet’s post if you are still unsure of how the new EU Cookie Law will affect your business.

…and no, you can’t ignore this and hope it goesd away! Non cimpliant website owners could be fined £500,000!

Edited 17th May 2012

Since writing this blog, I became aware of a further requirement to comply with this law. You are also required to have a Privacy Policy and Terms of Business Page available to visitors. Please see the links to each of these page on this website for guidance.