[deadbadger]

If you check out the relevant paragraph of the Directive itself (quoted below) you'll see that's just the BBC's rather odd interpretation. The Directive doesn't mention shopping cart cookies at all, but rather carves out an area of potential exemptions for information that is essential to the service the user is accessing.

The BBC's technology reporting veers wildly between the patronising, the embarrassing, and the just plain wrong. I think this is a stab at the former.