Partner Article

Maxymiser advise on EU cookie regulations

Is your business running out of time to meet EU cookie regulations?

In the early days of online businesses, regulation was difficult and often reasonably redundant, as much of what was possible and the technologies being used were still coming into shape. Regulation of ecommerce was limited by this fast-moving pace but also by the lack of understanding among Governments and consumers of what they were signing up for.

But in recent years, all this has changed. With topics like online privacy moving quickly up the agenda and the progress of web standards in more concrete shape, the EU has started to crack down on many traditional elements of the marketing mix, turning its eye to everything from advertising on social networks to email marketing.

Whether you look at this as order being brought to a digital wild west that sometimes fails to self-regulate enough or an unwelcome intrusion from Brussels is unfortunately irrelevant. Come May 2012, you’ll have to make sure you’ve jumped through the latest hoop – the EU cookie legislation - or you may well face the wrath of the Information Commissioner.

So what’s involved?

The Way the Cookie Crumbles

From this May, you’ll no longer be allowed to simply store data on the computers of your website visitors without their prior consent. That means if you use tracking cookies to see how they have behaved on your site before or any other method that stores information locally, you’ll need to rethink your processes to make sure the customer is both aware of what is being tracked and is able to give explicit consent.

With only four months until penalties come into force, online brands will struggle to comply unless their “Cookie Consent” plans are already well underway and they have started to address issues over attaining user consent for storage or access of cookies.

It’s a critical issue for any brand running a website; cookies have become more fundamental in site design than many other aspects of the online experience, where understanding where your customer is in the buying process and how they move through your site can be vital to converting the sale.

So what can your business do to make sure it’s prepared for the oncoming EU changes? To stay ahead of the game – and the May 2012 deadline – follow these three guidelines:

Be clear, be honest -remember, the EU is encouraging good habits. If you’ve always done your best to respect users’ privacy and help them understand what you track, that’s half the battle. The new directives require you to be clear about what you will use the cookie for - think about what Facebook asks when you let an app connect with it.

Think beyond cookies -the core of this law refers to any business that is storing data on their users’ computers. Cookies are the most obvious example, but make sure you don’t fall short of the bigger picture. Even better, look at all your activities and try and anticipate where regulation may extend next.

Don’t forget the user interface challenge -the process of asking for consent from your users and ensuring you have the required level of clarity provides challenges beyond just the IT department. Make sure your user experience designers calibrate how elements of this extra step impact conversion rates – and there’s no better way to know for sure than A/ B and Multivariate testing.

There are considerable subtleties in different designs and their development is best managed iteratively. Don’t fall into the trap of having to make rash assumptions in May on what will comply, without having your test reports in hand.

Still worried that your cookie strategy and preparations for the May deadline may be falling short? Join our webinar on 24thJanuary or read our white paper to find out more about how to get things cooking.

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Tom Keighley .