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Find out more about the UKMW11 conference on 25 November 2011
and how to register at http://bit.ly/ukmw11
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Hi Tony (Harris)
I agree with Tony (Crockford) "The Privacy and Electronic Communications Directive is vague and ill-defined and probably unworkable in real terms." I also agree with him when he says that "everyone is hoping that the web browser settings (to accept, or not accept cookies) will be seen as consent by the user."
Note that I came across a page which quoted Frances Maude as saying that the Government was looking for a 'business-friendly solution' to the privacy legislation - and not using Google Analytics (GA) isn't a business-friendly solution. [Didn't bookmark page, unfortunately]
Also note that in Germany a GA cookie-blocking plugin has been accepted as providing am appropriate solution [1] - this is a good example of how the conformance with legislation may be implemented by the end user rather than the service provider.
Note that back in May I wrote a post entitled "How Should UK Universities Respond to EU Cookie Legislation?" [2] and followed that up with a survey of "Privacy Settings For UK Russell Group University Home Pages" [3]. This has led on to work in which a small group on UK University Webmasters will be analysing privacy statements within the sector and documenting examples of best practices, which might include documenting how cookies are being used and possibly providing machine-readable privacy statements. Note that I don't think that anyone is suggesting that we will have a remove GA code.
Brian
References
1 http://www.webpronews.com/google-analytics-germany-2011-09
2 How Should UK Universities Respond to EU Cookie Legislation?, http://ukwebfocus.wordpress.com/2011/05/26/how-should-uk-universities-respond-to-eu-cookie-legislation/
3 Privacy Settings For UK Russell Group University Home Pages, http://ukwebfocus.wordpress.com/2011/05/24/privacy-settings-for-uk-russell-group-university-home-pages/
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Brian Kelly
UKOLN, University of Bath, Bath, UK, BA2 7AY
Email: [log in to unmask]
Blog: http://ukwebfocus.wordpress.com/
Twitter: http://twitter.com/briankelly
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