We wrote about the EU Privacy/Cookie directive recently.  It essentially says that if you are collecting any information about users - you must inform them and allow them to opt out.

This is a big ask - every website nearly nowadays puts little cookies (bits of text data) onto users computers.  The help the browsing experience at a minimum and track things like e-commerce baskets.  With the millions of websites in the UK alone, how on earth are the little guys supposed to respond?

The Information Commissioners Office (which is responsible for this) has said businesses should show they're making an effort to comply (and at the same time giving us all a year's grace).  The directive was implemented at the start of May.  In the mean time they're trying to work with browser manufacturers to create a global solution.

As a business, we feel the need to stay on top of trending technical issues - whether it be compliance, social networking, website usage and display technologies and more.  We don't charge extra for things we think every one of our customers should have.  So it is with the EU Directive 2009/136 EU.  We've invested our own time and money into something we will essentially give away for free.

If you look at the top left of this website, you'll see a little popup explaining the cookies we collect.  It's not the full solution.  We aren't going to create a solution the browser guys are looking at (if they make it), but we are certainly aiming to show the Information Commissioners Office that we (and all our clients) are doing their best to comply.  So, once we've tested it on our site we'll roll it out, free, to all our customers.  And if it works well there, then to the Drupal community as a whole.