Marketers Gain a Year's Respite on Privacy Directive

Internet marketers struggling with exactly how to implement the revised EU Privacy and Communications Directive, which comes into effect this week, have been given a reprieve; the Information Commissioners Office (ICO) has said they will be giving sites another year to comply with the law.  The Department for Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) has also implied that it will be taking a wait and see approach to the regulations since the technical solutions required are "much longer term".

Translation; neither the ICO nor DCMS really have any idea how to implement and effectively control the new directive.  There are has been much debate about how exactly to interpret the directive, and what changes websites will need to make to be compliant.  

The directive requires that sites get "consent" from consumers to use third party cookies to collect and use behavioural data for ad targeting.  The problem comes with what "consent" means; do sites need to explicitly ask every user whether they can use cookie data to target them with behavioural ads, or can they take consumer's decision to allow the site to place cookies in the first place as implicit consent?  What about third party cookies, such as Google Analytics or affiliate marketing cookies?  Who knows - the ICO and DCMS certainly do not seem to.  

All that is clear at the moment is that the Directive remains a toothless beast, and does not look like growing some anytime soon.