This has been a real bug bear of mine for some time now, today the EU cookie law was meant to come into force – and low and behold, nothing.

The only site I have seen asking explicit permission for storing cookies prior to placing a cookie is – well, nobody. The ICO website actually places a session cookie without asking – why? I’m not sure, it doesn’t seem absolutely necessary unless I was to tick the box saying I accept cookies!!! It’s not like I’m going to login or add any EU directives to some fictional shopping cart. So ICO, why the “necessary” cookie?

To be fair though, I’ve been stuggling to think up an ideal solution and I think their’s is it. But you can tell people have struggled with this – I haven’t been able to find any possible solutions being blogged about (maybe there are some, but I couldn’t find them).

On the BBC News today they have announced that the cookie law is to be deferred for a year, but if they receive a complaint and the business hasn’t displayed evidence for trying to work towards a solution then they may be in trouble.

So, which websites do we think will be adhering to the legislation?

How about, Amazon.co.uk?

Nope.

Ok, ok, how about Google.co.uk?

Nope.

How about legislation.gov.uk, surely the website that lays down the law itself would adhere tothe law?

Nope.

To be honest, this along with the G8 thing on controlling the Internets is really starting to put me off us being in the EU – at the moment all I can see is our economy faultering where other economies such as the US economy prospering. We’re in a bad enough situation as it is, not having a Google/Facebook/Ebay/Amazon/Twitter etc. of our own, without all this legal crap stifling innovation.