The year is 2012 and some believe that this is the year that the world will end – doom sayers point to the fact that this was predicted thousands of years ago by the Mayans.
Undoubtedly this will be a year of change for many people with numerous regulatory changes on the horizon – in a sense it will be Armageddon for the unprepared, imagine over the coming months RDR, VAT, the FSA being disbanded and remoulded into the FCA and PRA with the good old BoE thrown in for good measure….brr!! doesn’t bear thinking about for many.
If you are one of the believers then the deadline (26th May 2012) for the years grace for compliance with the ePrivacy Directive must seem to be pretty unimportant in the scheme of things.
The half term report from the ICO does not bear good tidings, phrases as “could do better” and “must try harder” are being rolled out – not many sites have even attempted to comply (I haven’t found any but the ICO site) but then I haven’t looked very hard. Reasons for this are many and varied:
- I don’t understand what it means.
- ICO will not fine everyone if no one does it.
- Technology is not available to support it.
- It will destroy the user experience.
- It will make my site less accessible.
- Users will just ignore it and not read the messages.
- Users will stop coming to my site and go elsewhere.
- Users will complain and refuse.
None of them are valid ones for non compliance, the ICO will take a patient view and will judge each case on its merits but they will act on any reports of non compliance.
Website owners need to be looking at their Terms and Conditions, Privacy notices etc.. on their website and explore options on how to comply (there are solutions out there or develop your own).
Armageddon is said to be a series of cataclysmic events like a perfect storm, the ones left will be the ones best prepared – are you prepared?
For more information see my previous post “The new rules on electronic marketing and cookies – are you ready?”
If you would like to discuss feel free to comment or contact me via email or twitter @tim_kc_ng – see you on the other side.
