Re: [Fsuk-manchester] Cookies policy of Manchester City Council's website

[Yuwei Lin]

Many thanks for your very helpful and informative feedback, all! I now
have a better idea about what cookies is about.

While I appreciate that Mcr city council needs to address EU's
mandate, which IMHO is not necessarily a bad regulation from a
perspective of awareness-raising and acquiring informed consent, Mcr
City Council's website still appears to be unfriendly to me, from the
usability perspective. I would have liked the pop-up notice to be
worded in a less strict tone. That would have achieved its educational
as well as technical goals better, I think. Perhaps they should take
the content from this thread and season it with some humour...

Cheers.

Best wishes,
Yuwei



On 22 October 2013 08:44, Simon Ward <address@hidden> wrote:
>
>
> Michael Dorrington <address@hidden> wrote:
>
>>There is also the Information Commissioner's Office (ICO) page on the
>>matter (which tries to set a cookie on visiting it without asking with
>>the helpful footer of "We have placed cookies on your computer to help
>>make this website better. You can change your cookie settings at any
>>time. Otherwise, we'll assume you're OK to continue.".
>
> This is fine. Browsers are much better placed to provide a user interface for 
> accepting and rejecting cookies, and they can do it regardless of the web 
> site you visit. It is a bad assumption that every site will ask you if you 
> want to set cookies.
>
> From the ICO's point of view, the EU directive was to increase the awareness 
> of the use of cookies. It initially took a strict interpretation, but later 
> updated it as it decided the objective was met[1].
>
> [1]: 
> http://www.ico.org.uk/news/blog/2012/updated-ico-advice-guidance-e-privacy-directive-eu-cookie-law
>
>>Looking at the articles, Manchester City Council is probably not
>>breaking the law, or at least any law that is being enforced, when
>>using
>>cookies for a web form.  However, there are alternative methods to
>>cookies for this, as described in the Wikipedia article above in the
>>"Alternatives to cookies" section.
>
> Cookies are not inherently evil. They are just parts of the HTTP request and 
> response, the same as any other header or the data of the web site. The 
> difference is that a representation of the cookie is stored on your computer, 
> and that your browser could send it back to a completely different site if 
> you let it. There it is again, the browser is in the perfect place to control 
> what happens to these cookies.
>
> Now, consider the alternatives. Hidden tokens in forms and URI parameters can 
> both be used to track state, across sites too. These can take a variety of 
> forms, and can be hard for the browser to detect and therefore take action 
> on. If we remove cookie functionality from HTTP, we essentially remove 
> something useful just because it can also be used badly. Worse, more sites 
> will use the alternatives, and it will become harder for you/your browser to 
> manage.
>
> That said, there's nothing to stop sites using alternative, more underhand, 
> methods of tracking anyway, irrespective of whether cookies exist.
>
> Simon
>
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