Web Analytics Illegal in UK after 26 May? Crazy • Hacker News Board

Re: Web Analytics Illegal in UK after 26 May? Crazy

#41

Post by wardenclyffe » Fri, Apr 20, 2012, 11:34 AM UTC

mryan wrote: post #34

icebraining wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Possibly, but how is the ICO supposed to regular browser vendors?

The exactly same way there are attempting to regulate website owners - by passing a nonsense law that will do nothing to solve any real privacy concerns. The ICO has the power to force browser vendors with a UK presence to implement this at the browser level. I wonder why they didn't? Short-sightedness? Or perhaps they knew that Google/Mozilla/Microsoft are more capable of presenting a unified front to fight this, co…

More likely those companies already lobbied the hell out of the situation and got people to make it someone else's problem.

Re: Web Analytics Illegal in UK after 26 May? Crazy

#42

Post by scanr » Fri, Apr 20, 2012, 11:34 AM UTC

icebraining wrote: post #11

jgrahamc wrote: post #7

If you read right to the end of the actual guidance from the ICO it says: --- We only use analytical cookies – if nobody consents that will seriously restrict the amount of information we can get to improve and develop our website The Regulations do not distinguish between cookies used for analytical activities and those used for other purposes. We do not consider analytical cookies fall within the ‘strictly necessar…

Frankly, their policy seems sensible and I'm having an hard time giving a fuck about the webmasters (is this still used?). If you want to track, do it properly with a package installed on your own server. stop subjecting your users to Google's All-Seeing Eye just because using their Analytics is easier for you.

There's a whole class of 'mom & pop' type websites out there that need analytics to function but:

* It's hosted in a way that precludes putting your own analytics in there (github pages, s3 etc.)

* The users lack the technical sophistication to install and manage their own analytics.

I've just finished moving my wife's site to github pages. It's awesome. The mac github client is pretty friendly, I set up the repo and jekyll and put a shortcut on her desktop to fire up a local server. She knows enough HTML to be able to update content on it. Analytics would be massively useful but it just won't be sensible for me to put them in.

I'm hoping what happens is that Google releases it's UK friendly analytics which does the following:

* Stops dropping cookies on UK based browsers

* Attempts to get consent through a different channel and then enables cookies for those users across the board

Re: Web Analytics Illegal in UK after 26 May? Crazy

#43

Post by JohnnyFlash » Fri, Apr 20, 2012, 11:35 AM UTC

My company is going to ignore the law until someone pull's us up on it. This law will severely restrict our ability to analyse how users are interacting with our product. This law will compromise our ability to further improve our product and disadvantage us against foreign competitors.

Our company doesn't track users off the site, we anonymise data so it cannot be tracked back to an individual... as far as we are concerned the law shouldn't apply to how we make use of cookies.

The fine is up to £500k. Realistically.. the fine for a small company is more likely to a few thousand. It would be better to pay a few k a month in fines than lose 90% of our user data. If we implement this we might as well stop developing our product.

Re: Web Analytics Illegal in UK after 26 May? Crazy

#44

Post by mryan » Fri, Apr 20, 2012, 11:37 AM UTC

polshaw wrote: post #15

TomGullen wrote: post #14

We're a UK business with our web server in the USA. Do these new laws apply to our website?

yes

To provide a bit more detail:

"An organisation based in the UK is likely to be subject to the requirements of the Regulations even if their website is technically hosted overseas. Organisations based outside of Europe with websites designed for the European market, or providing products or services to customers in Europe, should consider that their users in the UK and Europe will clearly expect information and choices about cookies to be provided."

So, as a UK-registered business, you will be subject to this law.

My startup is registered in the UK, but all servers are outside of the UK. I am actually planning to just ignore this ruling and see what happens. If it looks like they are seriously going to go after startups that don't follow these rules, I will simply register the business in a location with less idiotic rules.

Re: Web Analytics Illegal in UK after 26 May? Crazy

#45

Post by ticks » Fri, Apr 20, 2012, 11:37 AM UTC

mryan wrote: post #36

mapleoin wrote: post #6

Disregarding the implementation details (which will probably evolve and adapt if this ever gets mandatory) I think it's a totally sensible thing as far as the user is concerned. I have the right to know how the information I send you is being used. If you'd like to track me, I'd rather have to opt in than opt out .

I believe you are in the minority - most people, even on HN, are probably comfortable (or apathetic :-) ) enough to accept the status quo. If you are really serious about protecting your privacy online, I imagine you already have your browser configured to deny all cookies except those which you explicitly accept. The tools to solve this problem already exist - either built in to the browser, or easily available as e…

I think you are seeing this from a limited viewpoint. There's lots of people out there who don't even understand what the internet is, you'd be lucky if they know what a browsers is. The EU is proactively protecting those people, much like has been done for decades with offline data protection.

Re: Web Analytics Illegal in UK after 26 May? Crazy

#46

Post by dhx » Fri, Apr 20, 2012, 11:37 AM UTC

NoScript, RequestPolicy, Adblock Plus, RefControl, UAControl, Do-not-track cookie-disabled Mozilla Firefox user here.

Regulating Internet technologies to this level of pedantic granularity will ensure that spammers, scammers, crackers and fraudsters have an effective monopoly on privacy-busting technology. The incentive for software to implement correct technological solutions will be taken away if an honesty box Do-not-track approach is considered adequate. I want my browser to have a maximal number of reasons (including a multi billion dollar advertising industry) to address the technical concerns highlighted by Panopticlick[1] or privacy experts that "get it"[2]. These technical problems will be exploited by unwanted parties on the Internet. Exploitation will occur legally in other jurisdictions out of reach of EU laws.

The full text of the directive can be found at §66 on page 20 of Directive 2009/136/EC at [3].

[1] https://panopticlick.eff.org/

[2] http://33bits.org/

[3] http://eur-lex.europa.eu/LexUriServ/LexUriServ.do?uri=OJ:L:2...

Re: Web Analytics Illegal in UK after 26 May? Crazy

#47

Post by gyardley » Fri, Apr 20, 2012, 11:37 AM UTC

icebraining wrote: post #11

jgrahamc wrote: post #7

If you read right to the end of the actual guidance from the ICO it says: --- We only use analytical cookies – if nobody consents that will seriously restrict the amount of information we can get to improve and develop our website The Regulations do not distinguish between cookies used for analytical activities and those used for other purposes. We do not consider analytical cookies fall within the ‘strictly necessar…

Frankly, their policy seems sensible and I'm having an hard time giving a fuck about the webmasters (is this still used?). If you want to track, do it properly with a package installed on your own server. stop subjecting your users to Google's All-Seeing Eye just because using their Analytics is easier for you.

Google's 'All-Seeing Eye' uses first-party cookies, just like anything you'd install on your own server. Just because something uses first-party cookies doesn't mean the data's not being sent to a third-party.

If this goofy law is more than sporadically enforced, future analytics probably won't use cookies at all - they'll just combine browser fingerprinting with server-side logs that get automatically sent to a third-party for processing. Individual end-users won't have any way of knowing whether it's there or not.

Re: Web Analytics Illegal in UK after 26 May? Crazy

#48

Post by toyg » Fri, Apr 20, 2012, 11:37 AM UTC

mattmanser wrote: post #16

toyg wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Translation: we don't want to sue you, this law is to go after Facebook and Google.

I don't know where on earth you picked up this conspiracy theory but it's not. If you'd been following this whole mess you'd know it's just a typical EU nonsense legislation that no-one knows how to implement and the UK is once again implementing it too harshly in law but giving it absolutely no teeth by creating a practically powerless and massively underfunded enforcement vehicle while our EU brethren quietly ignor…

No conspiracy intended! I know this started as the result of some-scaremongering-or-other on the Continent, as usual.

What I'm saying is that it's clear to everyone involved that the authorities (EU or UK or whatever) will never be able to enforce this law except for the largest targets, in the same way as they'll never go after anyone coupling their OS and browser except if it's as big as Microsoft.

Re: Web Analytics Illegal in UK after 26 May? Crazy

#49

Post by mapleoin » Fri, Apr 20, 2012, 11:37 AM UTC

wardenclyffe wrote: post #38

mapleoin wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the assumption is that you don't do any tracking by default and then the first cookie you set is to allow you to set other cookies in the future. The ICO would have website owners pop up a box to new users asking them to give consent to using cookies.

The ICO would have website owners pop up a box to new users asking them to give consent to using cookies. Which if they refuse has to create a cookie so that their selection is remembered. (Edited for clarity)

Hah, ok. I got it now. That's funny.

Re: Web Analytics Illegal in UK after 26 May? Crazy

#50

Post by [deleted] » Fri, Apr 20, 2012, 11:39 AM UTC

vasco wrote: post #37

icebraining wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A site is much more like a shop - private property, but a public place, and therefore it has legal restrictions if you want it open to the public.

Sure, but I still need to know where you are and what you're doing in the "shop" to make sure you're not just making it crap for everyone else

[deleted]