Websites face restrictions on how they watch what their users do.
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How websites track visitors and tailor ads to their behaviour is about to undergo a big shake-up.
From 25 May, European laws dictate that “explicit consent” must be gathered from web users who are being tracked via text files called “cookies”.
These files are widely used to help users navigate faster around sites they visit regularly.
Businesses are being urged to sort out how they get consent so they can keep on using cookies.
The changes are demanded by the European e-Privacy directive which comes into force in the UK in late May.
The section of the directive dealing with cookies was drawn up in an attempt to protect privacy and, in particular, limit how much use could be made of behavioural advertising.
This form of marketing involves people being tracked across websites, with their behaviour used to create a profile that dictates the type of adverts they see.
As part of its work to comply with the directive, the IAB – an industry body that represents web ad firms – created a site that explains how behavioural advertising works and lets people opt out of it.
The directive demands that users be fully informed about the information being stored in cookies and told why they see particular adverts.
“It’s going to happen and it’s the law.”
Christopher Graham Information Commissioner
Specifically excluded by the directive are cookies that log what people have put in online shopping baskets.
However, the directive is likely to have an impact on the more general use of cookies that remember login details and enable people to speed up their use of sites they visit regularly.
It could mean that after 25 May, users see many more pop-up windows and dialogue boxes asking them to let sites gather data.
The exact steps that businesses have to go through to comply with the law and gain consent from customers and users are being drawn up by the Department for Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS).
A spokesman for the DCMS said that work on the regulations was “ongoing” but would not be complete by 25 May.
In a statement, Ed Vaizey, minister for Culture, Communications and the Creative Industries, said he recognised that the delay would “cause uncertainty for businesses and consumers”.
Cookies are used by websites to save user preferences between visits.
“Therefore we do not expect the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) to take enforcement action in the short term against businesses and organisations as they work out how to address their use of cookies,” he added.
Information Commissioner Christopher Graham said: “I cannot bark at the industry at the moment because I have not got the regulations.”
However, Mr Graham stressed that the government’s confession that the regulations will be delayed should not be a spur to inaction.
“My message is that this is not your ‘get out of jail free’ card,” he said.
The response to complaints about firms that flout the directive will be viewed in light of what they have done to prepare for it, continued Mr Graham.
Businesses should be considering how they will communicate with customers to get consent and look at the technical steps that might make that process easier, he explained.
Early work by the ICO suggests that gathering consent by changing settings on browsers may not be sophisticated enough for the demands of the directive.
“They have to think seriously about this,” said Mr Graham. “It’s going to happen and it’s the law.”
This article is from the BBC News website. © British Broadcasting Corporation, The BBC is not responsible for the content of external internet sites.
Matthew Elliott says switching to AV would cause political uncertainty
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A referendum will be held on 5 May on whether to keep the first-past-the-post system for electing MPs or to switch to the Alternative Vote. In the run-up to polling day, the BBC is asking a variety of people to give their view: Matthew Elliott, director of the official No to AV campaign.
The Alternative Vote system would cost us £250m and install the Lib Dems as permanent kingmakers. Our country can’t afford it.
We live in uncertain economic times. At the moment people are worried about their jobs, about their mortgages, about their weekly shop. What most people aren’t worrying about is changing the voting system.
At a total cost of £250m, the Alternative Vote would pile political uncertainty on top of economic uncertainty and the only real beneficiaries of this expensive and unnecessary change would be the Liberal Democrats.
After each general election, the UK would face a Hung Parliament and we would have to wait patiently while the Lib Dems played one party off against the other behind closed doors.
Out would go manifesto commitments, on issues like tuition fees and VAT, until they had bargained their way to a policy which would benefit their party alone.
The only vote that would really count under AV would be Nick Clegg’s.
As well as giving the Lib Dems a permanent place in coalition, under the Alternative Vote the candidate coming in second or third often ends up winning the election.
Instead of MPs that take a principled stand, AV would create a legion of bland politicians that would tell you whatever you wanted to hear and ditch their promises at the first sign of trouble.
The AV is no cure to the problems in British politics; it is little more than a placebo being sold to the British people by the very people who would stand to gain from its introduction.
The question the public need to ask is: at £250m, can we afford to bring in a voting system that would turn Nick Clegg and the Liberal Democrats into permanent kingmakers?
If your answer is no, please vote No on 5 May 2011.
This article is from the BBC News website. © British Broadcasting Corporation, The BBC is not responsible for the content of external internet sites.
The UK media is saturated with coverage of Prince William’s forthcoming marriage to Kate Middleton. But what about those who don’t think the event is important?
You’ll have put up the bunting, then? Organised the street party? Filled your house with souvenirs and commemorative pull-out supplements?
And obviously you’ll want to read all about the happy couple? Where they’re going on honeymoon? Whether they’ve chosen canapes or sausages-on-sticks for the finger buffet?
No? What do you mean, no?
Studying much of the UK media’s coverage of the Prince William and Kate Middleton’s forthcoming wedding, you’d be forgiven for thinking that its advent had gripped the entire nation in a state of fevered, restless anticipation.
In the four months since the couple’s engagement was announced, there have been thousands of mentions of the term “royal wedding” in the UK’s national newspapers while broadcasters, including the BBC, have been equally diligent in their pursuit of the story.
Yet polls suggest the British public is not quite so uniformly receptive.
Making you feel ill?
Graphic artist Lydia Leith, 24, from Carlisle, Cumbria, says she has sold thousands of “Royal wedding sick bags”.
“We’ve heard so much about the royal wedding already and I’d heard so many people saying they were sick of it.
“I sent the sick bags out to some graphic design magazines I like and in no time it was all over Twitter.
“I did it as a joke. I never knew it was going to take off as it has.
“I’m not an anti-monarchist but it’s true that you can’t escape it. I thought I could do something with that.”
In a ComRes survey of 1,006 British adults conducted in November 2010, a clear majority said they were “not excited” by the wedding.
Of the sample, some 31% said they “couldn’t care less” about the event and a further 28% described themselves as “largely indifferent”.
Groups which call for the abolition of the monarchy acknowledge that they are in a minority, with most opinion polls putting dedicated republicans at around one-fifth of the population compared with around 70% backing the present system.
But a glance at readers’ comments below any online news story about the marriage indicates the prevalence of antipathy towards nuptial ubiquity.
Comedian Arthur Smith, best known for his curmudgeonly turns on TV’s Grumpy Old Men, is aggrieved that journalists are focusing on one matrimonial ceremony at a time of austerity at home and unrest abroad.
“What I hate most is the assumption that I care, when in fact I very much do not,” he barks.
“There are lots of important things happening right now and yet we keep hearing about it over and over again. I don’t care about my friends’ weddings, never mind theirs.
“Everyone has a royal wedding now – the average one in Britain costs about £20,000”
Bryony Gordon Daily Telegraph
“It’s the inescapability of the whole thing – you can’t get away from it even if you want to.”
Not all of those who express such sentiments are republicans or, indeed, grumpy old men like Smith.
The Daily Telegraph columnist Bryony Gordon is, in keeping with her newspaper’s editorial slant, steadfastly pro-monarchy. As a 30-year-old woman she belongs to a demographic that advertisers and editors no doubt visualise cooing over bridal gowns and wedding favours.
And yet she does believe the coverage – to which she has grudgingly contributed – has amounted to overkill, antagonising those who might otherwise be sympathetic to the House of Windsor as an institution.
Additionally, she argues that the very currency of a royal wedding has been devalued from 1981 when 28 million people watched the marriage of Prince Charles and Princess Diana. Exposure of and the rise of celebrity culture may be to blame.
“It’s not like in the early 80s when the royals were the big celebrities,” she says. “Posh and Becks have usurped them. They even had thrones when they got married.
“Everyone has a royal wedding now – the average one in Britain costs about £20,000. It’s not the big deal it once was.
When royal weddings were hard news
Ann Lyon, constitutional historian, University of Plymouth
Historically, royal weddings mattered because a king or his heir would marry the daughter of another to seal an alliance.
This has a long history – it only really died out after World War I. Up until the end of the 19th Century, of course, royal marriages were arranged.
Now, whom William marries is still important because he’s the direct heir presumptive and his children will be in the direct line of succession.
But from a constitutional point of view it’s handy that Kate isn’t controversial in any way – she isn’t a divorcee or a Catholic, for instance.
“Plus, I can’t relate to Kate. I don’t know why anyone would marry into that family, for a start.”
With even such a natural royalist repelled by the blanket coverage, Palace officials might be expected to worry about its impact on support for the crown as an institution.
Indeed, on the eve of the 2010 wedding of Sweden’s Crown Princess Victoria, support for the country’s monarchy slumped to its lowest-ever figure of 46%.
Graham Smith, campaign manager for the pressure group Republic, which calls for an end to the monarchy, does not expect a surge in support for an elected head of state in the run-up to 29 April.
Nor is he happy about the amount of coverage the event has so far received, having complained to the BBC for reporting it in a way which he feels has marginalised republican sentiment and insufficiently represented the fact the monarchy is a contested political institution.
But he does hope that the irritation felt by those either normally supportive of the monarchy or indifferent to its constitutional role will compel them to think carefully about the role it plays in British life.
“Politicians and the media are behind the curve,” he says. “They don’t realise that Britain has moved on. We are far less deferential as a society and as a nation.
“Although they aren’t demanding a republic, the public are small-“r” republicans in that they want to see a society of equals.
“That’s why the obligation is on the media to report it just down the line and always acknowledge the 20% who want to get rid of it all.”
Such republicans may not constitute a majority. But whatever festivities mark the wedding itself, there will be plenty of Britons celebrating when the whole thing is over.
This article is from the BBC News website. © British Broadcasting Corporation, The BBC is not responsible for the content of external internet sites.
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