[oliveremberton]

How exactly am I spreading Fear, Uncertainty or Doubt here? (I wrote that article, and run Silktide).

We have no problem with privacy - quite the opposite, I wish it were being taken seriously - but this law is not remotely about that. If you look at the ICO's latest report they say their audit of sites like Facebook and Google was done purely "visually". They are literally evaluating privacy by looking for banners or legal pages, and not at say the technology or intent behind it.

This event is newsworthy because their site - which is clearly going to be looked at as an exemplar of best practice - is changing from explicit opt-in to implicit. Essentially we're now back to 2009, when sites were expected to include privacy policies that explain if they use cookies.