The cookie law is dead, you’re welcome • Hacker News Board

Re: The cookie law is dead, you’re welcome

#51

Post by petercooper » Tue, Sep 11, 2012, 3:33 PM UTC

codeka wrote: post #30

grabeh wrote: post #19

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 thin…

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

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.

Re: The cookie law is dead, you’re welcome

#52

Post by junto » Tue, Sep 11, 2012, 4:04 PM UTC

I'm fairly sure that the EU issued a directive and not regulation. The member state takes these directives and decide whether to (and how to) implement them into the statutory law of their country.

The rest of Europe looked at this directive and decided not to implement it 'ad pedem litterae'. You don't see any other countries with stupid little cookie notices plastered all over their websites.

The United Kingdom on the other hand, has a long history of misunderstanding the purpose of directives and implementing them without due consideration or manipulation.

Thus, the EU Cookie Law is misnamed. It is the UK Cookie Law.

It followed from the EU Directive 2002/58 on Privacy and Electronic Communications: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Directive_on_Privacy_and_Electr...

Directive... Directive... Directive...

Don't blame Brussels. Blame the UK government.

More on regulation and directives here: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/8160808.stm

Re: The cookie law is dead, you’re welcome

#53

Post by yaix » Wed, Sep 12, 2012, 8:01 AM UTC

jerf wrote: post #36

yaix wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Welcome to the world of EU bashing. People usually never read anything that comes from Brussels, but love to complain about it. Unfortunately, that is especially true for British media.

Welcome to the world of $LARGE_ORGANIZATION bashing. People usually never read anything that comes from $LARGE_ORGANIZATION, but love to complain about it. Unfortunately, that is especially true for $EVERYONE. (Sorry. Excessively-specific adjectives are a bit of a pet peeve of mine.)

Just read European newspapers and the justifications of politicians in Europe when they want to implement some unpopular policy.

Its not uncommon that a political party introduces a policy first on the EU level (say, in the Commission) and then complain about it later that the "EU forces them" to implement it on a national level (even though it was that same party that promoted it in Europe). Its the easiest way for politicians to blame unpopular but necessary policies on somebody else.

Re: The cookie law is dead, you’re welcome

#54

Post by DeepDuh » Wed, Sep 12, 2012, 9:01 AM UTC

jerf wrote: post #36

yaix wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Welcome to the world of EU bashing. People usually never read anything that comes from Brussels, but love to complain about it. Unfortunately, that is especially true for British media.

Welcome to the world of $LARGE_ORGANIZATION bashing. People usually never read anything that comes from $LARGE_ORGANIZATION, but love to complain about it. Unfortunately, that is especially true for $EVERYONE. (Sorry. Excessively-specific adjectives are a bit of a pet peeve of mine.)

You do like shell script, don't you? ;)