[grabeh]

I do enjoy a self-propagandising and excessively hyperbolic headline.

In principle the law has an honest objective to increase user awareness of cookies. I just don't understand all the developers on here jumping around at the outrageousness of the law when the ICO in the UK is obviously taking a relaxed approach to enforcement.

Obviously the problem is that a law as drafted could be applied as drafted however I think there is room for a pragmatic approach here which acknowledges a) the type and sophistication of the site and its users b) the type of cookies being used and c) the risk of a user being harmed or making a complaint.

[randallsquared]

taking a relaxed approach to enforcement.

Whenever a group largely objects to a law, it seems that some of the group will say something like "Well, at least they're not enforcing it", or "Well, at least prosecutors have discretion on bringing charges", as though this is better, when in fact lax enforcement is worse. If people are not in immediate danger from a law, no matter how bad it is, they will be less inclined to spend their own time and resources fighting it. This means that in modern democracies, bad laws that stay on the books almost always come with inconsistent or rare enforcement, because that's how they stay on the books: people are not outraged enough to lobby for repeal or amendment.

[grabeh]

You are right - the risk is of course that with a bad law on the books, the enforcement strategy could change at any moment.

[sageikosa]

...or be subject to stochastic enforcement. Anything not predictable is inherently risky and likely to be avoided by the more risk averse. The actors engaging in more risky behavior then become the prototypes for bad behavior and a justification for tougher enforcement and more laws.

[ThomPete]

Increasing awareness of cookies is not very helpful. People don't give a rats heini about stuff like that.

All it does is make things more confusing causing customers to drop off.

And I still don't understand what is so bad about them being able to profile me. I want them to do that so I can get better ads / better communication in the future.

[grabeh]

I think the problem is that you are aware of this profiling in the first place. Many are not. At least if they are informed, they can make a decision as to whether or not they care about it.

I don't know where I lie on the divide between those who value the input that targeted advertising can bring and those who are vehemently against any form of tracking. The problem I think is the uneducated majority in the middle. They may browse one site and then wonder why ads from that site or for a similar product are suddenly appearing. They have no awareness whatsoever that information about their browsing habits is being collected.

I personally think it is a more preferable situation to have an educated populace opting in to that form of collection of information than to have an uneducated one who has no comprehension that companies are engaging in this sort of behaviour.

I accept it is likely to be relatively harmless in many cases, but as I saw, I would rather than an informed opt-in or at least knowledge that this was taking place.

[cbs]

>All it does is make things more confusing causing customers to drop off.

So what you're saying, is that it becomes more expensive to use cookies for bullshit like user profiling and you have to think about whether or not they're goddamn necessary for your website?

Sounds like the law is working correctly then.

[codeka]

But what's the point of passing a law if you're not going to enforce it?

[petercooper]

As is true of many laws in England and Wales, having weakly enforced laws on the books can come in handy when there's someone you want to nail but on whom you can't solidly pin anything else.

In a way, this is one of the beauties of our legal system. Something as simple as swearing in public is an arrestable offense but almost no-one casually swearing within earshot of an officer would get hauled in. If that person were antagonising people, acting "suspiciously", etc, then it gives the officer a handy way to haul them in without proving a different offense.

Likewise, the "cookie law" could be a way of reeling a dangerous Web site in when there's no solid proof of anything else they're doing.