How This Cookie Crumbled: Deciphering the Compliance Obligations Around the EU’s Cookie Directive

Posted by D. Daniel Sokol

Saira Nayak (TRUSTe) explains How This Cookie Crumbled: Deciphering the Compliance Obligations Around the EU’s Cookie Directive.

ABSTRACT: In the past few years, online advertising practices have increasingly come under the regulatory microscope on both sides of the Atlantic. Much of this attention has been centered on the use of technology by online advertisers—particularly the use of “cookies” and similar tracking technologies in advertising online. In recent years, advertisers have configured cookies and similar technologies to track a user’s online activity over time and then serve the user ads based on such activity. Different names apply to this type of advertising. The Federal Trade Commission has labeled and defined this as “behavioral advertising.” The industry refers to it as interest-based advertising—to highlight that as a result of being tracked, the user almost always receives an ad that is relevant or “of interest.”3 Regardless of the label, the use of technology to track a specific user’s online activity continues to raise privacy concerns—particularly as cookie and tracking technology evolves.