As website owners, we have to be aware of the regulations that we must comply as far as our online business is concerned. I want to talk about these legal issues and write at least one post a month about different legal aspects that we need to bear in mind when setting our online business. Today I want to focus on the cookie law and what we have to do to comply with it.

I know this topic can be a bit daunting, so I promise I’ll be as concise as possible and we will go through all the information little by little so you don’t get lost at any point. Ready?

Oh, wait… but what’s a cookie?

Cookies are like little pieces of memory stored as files in every single user that visits your website. It helps your website to remember every visitor so you can know how many times he has visited your website and his behaviour in it.

90% of websites use cooking nowadays. They are very useful as they help to improve the visitor experience in our websites through the data that we can collect with Google Analytics. However, they collect data from these visitors and must be regulated by our privacy policy.

Do you want to learn more?

And are you really telling me that there is a cookie law?

There is an European legislation about cookies and privacy policy that you can consult clicking here and here.

The main objective of all this legislation is protecting the privacy of all Internet users. That is why this regulation provides that we have to ask for permission to our visitors if we want to use cookies in our websites. It’s our responsibility as the administrator of our websites, to let our audience know about the cookies: what’s a cookie? What types of cookies are we using in our websites? How are we going to use these cookies?

Apart from this, we have to bear in mind that every country may have their own regulations as well. For examples, this is the regulation in Spain and this is the regulation in the UK.

But, what do I have to do to comply with the cookie law?

Firstly, you have to specify within your website your privacy and cookies policy. As you can see, for example, I have added at the bottom of my website a bar with my privacy policy.

You should explain to your audience that your website uses cookies, the type of cookies and how you are using them. You have to be sure that your target audience understands it. So if you are targeting different audiences in different languages, you may consider looking for a legal translator that is aware of the different regulations.

Once you have set your privacy policy, you have to publish it in your website. It must be visible and easy to access. You can use a bar at the bottom of your page as I did, or you can include a link in the footer or your website, for instance.

Last but not least, you have to ask for permission. You have to ask your visitor to agree with your privacy and cookies policy, and you have to do it in a way that doesn’t affect the visitor experience through your website. Some people use pop-ups, but I think that they may be sometimes a bit annoying for our audience. That’s why I stick to the bar at the bottom. The first time you visited my website, you must have seen a message asking for your permission.

If you are interested in this last method, I’d recommend using the WordPress plugin Cookie Law Info.

And what if I turn a blind eye to the Cookie Law?

You may face fines of up to £500.000 if it’s a serious breach of the law. Although normally, the fines aren’t that high, you should be aware of this:

“The Commissioner will be able to impose a monetary penalty notice if an organisation has seriously contravened the Regulations and the contravention was of a kind likely to cause substantial damage or substantial distress. In addition the contravention must either have been deliberate or the organisation must have known or ought to have known that there was a risk that a contravention would occur and failed to take reasonable steps to prevent it.”

So, what are you going to do to comply with the cookie law? Are you already using any specific method? I would like to hear from you!

Reminder: During March, I have set a poll on my Facebook page where you can vote for your favourite content of this blog. Vote now so I can get to know what type of content you want me to talk about!

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