If the recent ICO cookie rule is any indication on where the legislative proposals are heading then the concluding statement in the article "Expect sparks to fl

If the recent ICO cookie rule is any indication on where the legislative proposals are heading then the concluding statement in the article "Expect sparks to fly when these proposals come out in January" is an understatement. For those that are unaware the "EU Cookie Law" requires explicit user consent before setting a cookie that can be used for tracking[1]. That's a pretty high bar for sites that just want to use something like Google Analytics. Now if you consider extending out the intent of that law to all data collected from EU citizens it will make doing business in Europe via the internet much more cumbersome for those that want to do any sort of marketing. Personally, I like the idea that the EU is forcing companies to be transparent about what information they are collecting and what purpose they are collecting for, but publicly listed policies, such as a privacy policy or terms of use, should be enough. To force users to have to read a legal statement and check a box to agree to start doing business makes that step much more difficult and I'm betting that is exactly where they are heading. http://www.privsecblog.com/2011/07/articles/main-topics/marketing-consumer-privacy/six-tips-for-compliance-with-europes-new-cookie-rules/ http://www.privsecblog.com/2011/07/articles/main-topics/mark...