Friday 20 January 2012

Cookiepedia – you heard it here, first


The data protection experts who are so far ahead of the curve that it hurts will already have consulted this internet site, and now it’s your turn to know that it exists and to spread the word about what useful purpose it could serve. And think of the brownie points you will earn when your chums realise how on the ball you really are!

Launched by our chums at the Cookie Collective just 48 hours ago, the purpose of the site is to provide webmasters with a way of starting to comply with the cookie requirements in the ePrivacy Directive. If “the great unwashed” are to be provided with information about what cookies actually are, and what types of cookies exist, then it’s going to help greatly if the industry can create easy-to-read explanations. The sort of explanations that can be understood by people like Homer Simpson, as well as Albert Einstein. And, it will help even more if all of the players in industry can provide its users with very similar, if not identical, explanations of these cookies.

We all know that, ultimately, some of these cookies will be treated like Jose Mourinho, currently the Real Madrid football coach. These cookies will fall into the category of “the special ones”, for which preferential treatment will be available. In language used in the e Privacy Directive, these will be the “strictly necessary” cookies, ie those for which consent will not be required before they can be placed on a person’s electronic device.

The website does not offer advice on the types of cookies that will fall into the Mourinho category, but it is only in beta form right now. You never know how it might evolve. After all, Richard Beaumont, the guru behind this initiative, seems keen to let users play with the site and we can all see how it develops organically from here.

And because it’s only in beta form, please don’t scoff if you can’t yet find a privacy policy (or a cookie policy, for that matter). We all know how hard it is to get the legal bits all nicely formed, at the bottom of the home page. So let’s take a moment to celebrate the great work which had been achieved so far, rather than carp from the sides about the absence of compliance and regulatory stuff that means so little to so many.

I don’t know how these cookie definitions will differ from the categories of cookies that are being created by the International Chamber of Commerce (see the blog I posted on 14 January). Hopefully, it won’t be too long before their initial approach is known.

Source:
http://cookiepedia.co.uk

Declaration of interest:
I have no business, personal or financial interest in this website, nor am I associated with any members of the Cookie Collective. But it does seem like a good idea and I do like speading news about good ideas.

.