Last week the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) issued a briefing note outlining the steps that e-businesses need to take in order to achieve compliance with the EU’s amended Privacy and Electronic Communications Directive, which comes into force on 26th May 2011. In this Right to Reply article, the IMRG voices concern that usability may be greatly impeded by ICO guidelines.
The new amendments apply to the use of cookies on websites, specifically how a website stores information on a user or gains access to that information.
The new requirement in the Directive is that cookies can only be used on a device where the user has given their express consent, by ‘opting-in’.
Although the Directive suggests that browser settings could be an appropriate method for obtaining consent, the ICO guidance advices against it, as it believes that most browsers are not sophisticated enough to fit that purpose.
It instead set out alternative options for opting-in, such as using pop-ups or getting users to agree through the terms and conditions of the site.
There are serious concerns among the e-retail industry that the heavy use of pop-ups and consent-request windows will prove very intrusive to users, in addition to causing confusion as to what they are agreeing to, and lead to issues of trust when accessing new sites.
The impact upon mobile internet users could potentially be very disruptive. Mobile devices can be used on the move and in-store to compare prices and read product reviews before purchasing; pop-up windows and long lines of text on a mobile screen will be very off-putting for the user.
Andrew McClelland, Director of Operations and Regulatory Policy at IMRG, said: “Although we have yet to hear the Government’s final position on obtaining user consent, the ICO guidance does appear to represent a shift in policy from what we understood that position would be.
Consent has to be obtained for each separate cookie; this may be fine if a user only accesses a small number of relatively basic sites. However, for feature-rich sites and for people interested in using the full scope of the internet, their user experience will be greatly impeded by their implementation, and could restrict innovation. The greatest strength of the internet has proven to be the universal provision of choice, value and accessibility to consumers, the benefits of which could be severely reduced under these guidelines.”
Source: http://www.imrg.org/
