The way developers and sites use cookies to track customer behaviour could change significantly over the next few years due to a change in the EU regulations on internet privacy. The plans are designed to make tracking that stores data on a computer only allowed with the expression permission or ‘opt-in’ of the user.

To put it in the legal speak:

“Member States shall ensure that the storing of information, or the gaining of access to information already stored, in the terminal equipment of a subscriber or user is only allowed on condition that the subscriber or user concerned has given his/her consent, having been provided with clear and comprehensive information, in accordance with Directive 95/46/EC, inter alia about the purposes of the processing.”

It’s caused quite a stir in online communities, with many members of the digital and online marketing world suggesting that such an opt-in should be designed at a browser level (optional settings in Firefox or Internet Explorer, for example) so that users wouldn’t have to opt-in to every single website they visited or have to change setting on all of their accounts.

Should this not prove to be enough to please the EU a lot of the fundamental technology behind the web – especially in terms of online marketing and affiliate networks that rely heavily on tracking technology – will be turned on its head, causing a serious headache for many a affiliate network and SEO agency alike!

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This entry was posted on Wednesday, November 25th, 2009 at 2:01 pmand is filed under Technical, affiliate marketing. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.