EU Cookie Directive - Code?

woodsysa

I'm not seeing where/how to ensure the EU Cookie Directive is adhered to.

Is there code? Where do I find it/access it?

How/where to we add it to the site?

Should be more prominent in help for EU Customers.

LPC

Why does it matter?

woodsysa

Because it's law!! And I don't wanna be prosecuted!! Squarespace have code - WordPress have plugins....and Smugmug??

denisegoldberg

There were some recent threads about this. There initially was a problem with the new smug but that was fixed and it appears that EU viewers are seeing the message. You shouldn't need to do anything to activate it.

You might want to take a look at the following threads:
EU Cookie message - still there?
EU cookie message

--- Denise

LPC

woodsysa wrote: »

Because it's law!! And I don't wanna be prosecuted!! Squarespace have code - WordPress have plugins....and Smugmug??

Don't be absurd, no one is going to prosecute you for not having that silly message on your screen. It only appears once and then it goes away after you have clicked on it. There are bigger bugs to worry about than this. Don't forget it is not your website - it is a Smugmug hosted website so if anyone will get a letter from Brussels it will be them and not you but it would never happen anyway. As someone who deals with EU law every working day, I promise you this is a non-issue!

woodsysa

Thanks Denise. All looks a bit hit or miss. Some sites had it I looked at - some not.

Would prefer SmugMug to post an article on their help pages so stops us trawling through forum threads. Something a little more final and concrete would be cool.

I also hope the font colour is picked up by there theme customisation too because black text on black or white on white defeats it all.

Will keep an eye out for something 'official' from the guys.

paulbrock

the message appears on all smugmug sites for visitors in the EU. (initially they don't show up on new Smugmug sites, but that's now been fixed) Most sites' messages do picking up theming inc font type and colour from the site ,and they do look pretty good.

Had problems with mine though and had to manually style it using CSS. Never figured out why. Happy to check on your site if its unveiled.

paulbrock

LPC wrote: »

Don't be absurd, no one is going to prosecute you for not having that silly message on your screen. It only appears once and then it goes away after you have clicked on it. There are bigger bugs to worry about than this. Don't forget it is not your website - it is a Smugmug hosted website so if anyone will get a letter from Brussels it will be them and not you but it would never happen anyway. As someone who deals with EU law every working day, I promise you this is a non-issue!

That flies in the face of numerous guidelines. Of course, a small photo hosting site is unlikely to be top of the EU list, but there is a reason why everyone from the BBC, to newspapers, to shopping sites all have implemented the cookie warning.

Also, I would argue that if you're using your own domain name, its more likely that the EU will go after you rather than smugmug. For what should be a little bit of effort to check, its not worth the risk of a hefty fine, even if the risk of the fine is low.

Of course, if you're offering to pay any associated fines for all smugmug customers, I'm sure that's appreciated

beardedgit

The dumb thing about having a cookie-law message pop up over your SmugBug site is that by the time the message has displayed the cookies are already on your HDD. For it to have been effective it should not have allowed the target site to load anything until you'd chosen to accept the cookies, and if you'd chosen to not accept them then there should have been a redirect.

It's all bollocks anyway. There's nothing wrong with a simple "Implied Consent" message such as I have in the sidebar of my blog:

I'm working on the basis that Implied Consent is a valid form of consent in the context of compliance with the EU e-Privacy Directive.
If YOU don't want this site to place cookies on YOUR computer YOU should set YOUR browser to reject them.
See HERE for further info.

ablichter

LPC wrote: »

Don't forget it is not your website - it is a Smugmug hosted website so if anyone will get a letter from Brussels it will be them and not you but it would never happen anyway. As someone who deals with EU law every working day, I promise you this is a non-issue!

Well, than at least that is not true. They are only hosting provider of your site, not owner. It is your contents and you are responsible for it. Not only because SM has it in their Terms. If you are uploading f.e. unlawful content to your site, it can't be expected from SM that they would know about and take actions about it (especially not, when it might is set to "private"). Only when they would get knowledge about it and take no actions, they are in charge as well.

LPC

You really think the EU has nothing better to do than chase and fine you for not having this warning on your photography website? I think we are a little in danger of over estimating our importance here

For the record I saw it on mine when I unveiled, I clicked on it, it disappeared and I know it won't appear again unless I completely clear my cookie cache. I do hope people aren't expecting to see it every time? Whether or not other people see it on my website, I couldn't care less. I would hate to think people are losing sleep over this or holding back from unveiling their new site just in case they get prosecuted, for goodness sake! That would be a bit sad.

LPC

ablichter wrote: »

Well, than at least that is not true. They are only hosting provider of your site, not owner. It is your contents and you are responsible for it. Not only because SM has it in their Terms. If you are uploading f.e. unlawful content to your site, it can't be expected from SM that they would know about and take actions about it (especially not, when it might is set to "private"). Only when they would get knowledge about it and take no actions, they are in charge as well.

Who is responsible for the EU warning? You or Smugmug? It sure as heck isn't me!

ablichter

LPC wrote: »

You really think the EU has nothing better to do than chase and fine you for not having this warning on your photography website? I think we are a little in danger of over estimating our importance here

No, you underestimate things. All people do until they get hit...
I am not talking about "the EU", whoever you have in mind by that. For someone who claims to work wit EU laws every day, it seems you have a different understanding of the term EU. To avoid saying narrow.

The EU is also me, who are able to sue you, in case you do not warn me, if your site sets a cookie.

Not saying that / if it makes sense or not, but we have EU laws about cucumbers and light bulbs, why not about data security?

For the record I saw it on mine when I unveiled, I clicked on it, it disappeared and I know it won't appear again unless I completely clear my cookie cache. I do hope people aren't expecting to see it every time? Whether or not other people see it on my website, I couldn't care less. I would hate to think people are losing sleep over this or holding back from unveiling their new site just in case they get prosecuted, for goodness sake! That would be a bit sad.

Its definitely nothing to loose sleep about. But it would be good to respect it, especially when sitting here on the continent.

In the following I am not referring to the EU-cookie only.

There are lots of more or less dubious law office around (at least here in germany and BeNeLux) which just hope to find or get pointed to unlawful behavior (EU or german law) like this (or a missing Impressum (imprint, or terms) or shared preview pictures in Facebook) in order to send out a "cease-and-desist warning" (not sure if its the right term, in german: Abmahnung). Those start at ~ 900€ but even up to 10.000€ are not rare.
If some one at the end get a sentences and have to pay or not is not relevant here - 'cause here the trouble starts for the website operator: reacting, hiring a lawyer and maybe preparing for a trial.

The top 25 law offices in Germany made 412.459.335 € in 2010 by this - but to be fair, those are mainly because of copyright infringements.
Anyway, the smaller law office, which don't get this hunting jobs from large companies, or unemployed lawyers (which lately have made a "sport" out of searching for things like this), are the worst for website operators, etc. pp. and not to underestimate.

About the Eu-Cookie - translated from here

Users can refer directly to the EU Directive

Some countries, including Germany, have not yet been transposed the Directive into national law, although the deadline has long since expired. Now there is a risk that the Directive is directly applicable. This European law principle only applies, however, if the text of the Directive is sufficient in practice. A user can possibly plead against a Web site operator directly on the policy and insist on its obligations to provide information and to obtain any required consent.

Whether he is successful with this argument in the context of an appeal from a data protection authority depends on whether the agency classifies the policy as sufficiently specific. But at least the Federal Data Protection Commissioner Peter Schaar, has this view. Also threatens states that do not fulfill their obligation to implement, sooner or later infringement proceedings before the European Court of Justice, which can initiate the European Commission.

However, note that the legal situation in Europe is far from uniform at least for now. Company located in an EU country have to take account of the local needs. In Europe, operating companies based outside the European Economic Area, however, suffer especially from the legal uncertainty: You may have different national requirements for one and the same website noted. Here it is recommended usually to follow the strictest safety standards.

The situation in UK is different, because of different national laws AND regarding cookies, because UK has opt-in / transposed it to its national law already.

I believe you just shouldn't make it look silly and not talk in general.

ablichter

LPC wrote: »

Who is responsible for the EU warning? You or Smugmug? It sure as heck isn't me!

I haven't read the EU guide line 2009/136/EG yet, but I would say the website operator and content owner = you judicial for your site and SM technical, because you don't have any influence on cookies or a warning, except you make a page for that and you would be able to present it to the visitor BEFORE the cookie is set.
SM just supports you in meeting the laws.

Andy

Guys, you are way over-blowing this whole thing! I made this happen with the help of SM Engineers whilst I was working at SM. The cookie message is THERE. What is the issue?

http://moonriverphotography.com

beardedgit

Andy wrote: »

Guys, you are way over-blowing this whole thing! I made this happen with the help of SM Engineers whilst I was working at SM. The cookie message is THERE. What is the issue?

Andy, we're not debating the presence of the message, we're debating the requirement for it and the merits of it.

See post #2 onwards.

Andy

beardedgit wrote: »

Andy, we're not debating the presence of the message, we're debating the requirement for it and the merits of it.

See post #2 onwards.

Well, that's a non-issue. It's required, and merited. Sorry, but the EU requires it.

LPC

Andy wrote: »

Well, that's a non-issue. It's required, and merited. Sorry, but the EU requires it.

And it's there, as you say. There are just some people living in fear because they want assurances which hopefully they now have.

beardedgit

Andy wrote: »

It's required... Sorry, but the EU requires it.

Not always, there are exceptions. Sometimes it's not required, sometimes Implied Consent will suffice. See this .pdf

Andy wrote: »

... and merited.

What are the merits of a pop-up that warns you about cookies after they've been loaded?

Just because these things are non-issues for you, Andy, doesn't mean that they're non-issues for everybody else.

IMO it's a set of stupid regulations - if the web really is world-wide, the rules should be world-wide too. Then we'd all be in the same boat, a blanket statement by the ISPs would suffice, and we'd all have been warned.

Hell, when I can afford the petrol to actually drive my car, I don't need to be told to drive on the "right" side of the road every time I drive into a street which I've not driven down before!

Andy

beardedgit wrote: »

Just because these things are non-issues for you, Andy, doesn't mean that they're non-issues for everybody else.

IMO it's a set of stupid regulations

Well, I would agree - but the safest thing for SM to do (and again, I was there when it was done) ... was to comply. Dealing with governments who have endless resources is not a fun thing...so, I'm glad that SM complied and put the cookie message in.

beardedgit

Fair enough.

Andy wrote: »

... and again, I was there when it was done...

Just out of curiosity, when was that? I did some digging but I've found nowt so far.

paulbrock

I think I started a thread on it. Was shortly after the new rules were announced, and quickly implemented by sm

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