New cookie law UK

Hi all.

I understand what cookies are used for but do not now how they work completly.

Does opencart uses any cookies that will breach the new cookie law that will be implimented on the 26 May 2012

by Qphoria » Fri May 27, 2011 11:05 am
OC doesnt track any cookies. It has a cookie for your default language and currency... I think this falls outside the realm of any ruling. If they need explicit content then EU needs to force people to enable the cookie monitor on their browser. This isn't something a website needs to change. You freakin foreigners have some of the bad-shit stupidest laws.

Conclusion? You will be fine lol.

Thanks for that it is good to know.

Qphoria is right we do have some stupid laws.

I don't know if it is still valid now but a few years ago hackney carriages (taxis) by law had to carry a bail of hay in the back for the horse. lol

Ofcorse no one did.

On 26th May 2012 all UK websites must offer users opt-in consent tools to allow cookies that pass information about your browsing activities to 3rd parties.

right.. we don't pass the information beyond your own site so there is no worry.
I think only Google, Facebook, and a few others are actually affected by this because of they way they plant cookies for tracking your social activities and interests.

Actually, there are pretty much thousands of services around the world which will plant tracking cookies via websites, 'free' browser plugins and applications and sell the data to 'sharp' business persons....

So, the law may not be all that stupid.

Seems like an opportunity for Open Cart store owners to score some points with consumers by making this lack of tracking cookies plain in their policy statements...

David

The guidence from the ICO is ridiculously vauge although they do have some basic examples but I think you would be fine by saying that you are still looking for a solution. The cookies created by OpenCart depend on what functionally/extensions you are using.

The guidance states that cookies that are deemed Strictly Necessary are likely to be exempt, for example, a cookie used to ensure that when a user of a site has chosen the goods they wish to buy and clicks the ‘add to basket’ or ‘proceed to checkout’ button, the site ‘remembers’ what they chose on a previous page. This cookie is strictly necessary to provide the service the user requests (taking the purchase they want to make to the checkout) and so the exception would apply and no consent would be required. This would include the biggest functionality of OpenCart.

Performance Cookies such as those used for analytics, advertising and Pay Per Click would likely require consent. I use Google analytics so should probably have something asking for consent.

Functionality Cookies which would be used to remember user choices so that they have a more personalised experience would likely require consent. This might include detecting if the user has already seen a popup so that it isn’t shown again, submitting comments and remembering colours, text size etc.

Targeting/Advertising Cookies that collect information about browsing habits which is then used to serve up targeted ads would require consent.

Generally you have to:
Tell people that the cookies are there,
Explain what the cookies are doing, and
Obtain their consent to store cookies on their device.

Source

Although Opencart is fine, Google Analytics does breach this law, so if you use Google Analytics on your opencart site in the EU as of tomorrow - 26th May 2012 you will be in breach of the new EU Cookie Directive, and must get the users permission to put the google cookies on their computer.

To solve this we have developed an extension so you can easily comply with the law:
http://www.opencart.com/index.php?route ... on_id=6582

I would have thought that if google analytics is approved once at any site, it should be ok to use at others. In which case google could keep track of the permission :-)

The problem is that you're not approving google analytics use - you're approving that particular website's use of google analytics. You might be OK for Amazon to do this but not happy when you learn that dodgysoundingwebsite.com also uses this. The point is that users must know for every site they visit.