I’ve had some emails from clients recently asking about the October 6th 2020 deadline for compliance with the Data Protection Commission’s new guidelines on GDPR and Cookie compliance in particular. I’ve done some research and in a simple to understand (hopefully!) nutshell, here’s what all websites are required to do by law from October 6th 2020:
- Have a Privacy/Cookie Policy banner
- Require a website visitor to opt in to all unnecessary cookies
- Do NOT set unnecessary cookies until consent is given by the user
- Give the visitor the ability to withdraw consent if desired
Here’s how it should look roughly or view this website’s own Privacy/Cookie popup:
Here’s some further information if required:
Pinsentmasons.com/out-law/news/irish-cookies-guidance-updated
The majority of websites will only have a generic, simple Privacy/Cookie banner already but will not be able to handle the consent part so will be non-compliant from October 6th.
I have strong opinions on these kind of popups. I think they ruin your user’s experience of your website and confuse them. Also, if your visitors choose to opt out of cookies, their experience of your website and your ability to best serve them will be diminished and you may ultimately lose income. For example, Google Analytics needs to be blocked by default as it’s deemed non-necessary but it’s completely anonymous and useful to both website owners and visitors. All this has come about as a result of the public’s concern in recent years over privacy and our information being used against us which continues unchecked mostly on the sites we all use most, social media, and NOT regular business sites.
I’d rather not see any of these kind of popups at all.. However…
It is the law and the Data Protection Commission will apparently begin enforcing it soon after Oct 6th. so if you’d like to have me update your website to comply, please get in touch..