A third of UK websites are still not cookie compliant

More than a third (37%) of the top UK websites still haven't complied with the EU Cookie law some three months since the EU e-Privacy Directive (aka EU Cookie Directive) in the UK began, and more than 15 months since the first deferment of the EU e-Privacy Directive.

Figures from a survey by data privacy business TRUSTe, show nearly two in three (63%) of the top UK websites have implemented at least some measures to address the Directive, including several who have implemented robust and user-friendly compliance solutions.

Of the 231 sites tested, 12% had implemented prominent privacy notices with robust cookie controls; 51% had minimal privacy notices with limited cookie controls, and 37% did not appear to have taken any steps to comply with the Directive.

Of those sites that had not yet taken any visible compliance action, 49% had a low number of third-party cookies present on their site (0-25), 35% had a moderate level of third-party cookies (26-50) and 16% had a high level of third-party cookies (> 50).

Overall, 56% of the sites examined in this study had moderate to high levels of third-party trackers, but within this group only 17% had implemented robust compliance solutions combining prominent privacy notices and strong cookie controls.

Toyota and Barclays are good examples of good cookie implementation

TRUSTe singled out two sites, Toyota and Barclays as examples of sites that had met the EU criteria and had used creative approaches to make the implementations especially user-friendly. Toyota, for example, made it very simple for users to control cookie settings on their site http://www.toyota.co.uk and provided individual descriptions of cookie purposes (e.g. "Locate your dealer with Google Maps"). Similarly, Barclays' website http://www.barclays.co.uk displayed a clear privacy notice directing users to a page explaining the purpose of each cookie whilst giving the user readily accessible cookie preference controls.

Chris Babel, CEO TRUSTe said:

"Based on our analysis it is clear that many companies have started to take the EU Cookie Directive seriously and devoted time and resources to implement a compliance solution that helps their users control the tracking activity on their site.

At the same time it is clear that some companies have yet to put a compliance solution in place. We at TRUSTe, alongside the industry bodies and regulators, will continue to work with companies to help them implement solutions appropriate to their business model."