EU threatens Internet economy of Europe

A united front of media and advertising industry organisations - the Advertising Information Group, European Association of Communication Agencies, the European Newspaper Publishers' Association, the European Publishers' Council, the European Federation of Magazine Publishers, the Federation of European Direct and Interactive Marketing, the World Federation of Advertisers, the Interactive Advertising Bureau Europe and Euro-Ispa - is calling on the EU institutions locked into protracted Trialogue negotiations to see sense and reject “harmful wording” that is believed would hamper existing and new business models online.

Furthermore, not only are the latest proposals disproportionate and ill advised, according to the organisations, they also risk undermining the comprehensive and collaborative approach to dealing with the privacy issues envisaged by the institutions.

Special notification

As part of the telecom reforms package a small minority of Members of the European Parliament (MEPs) are championing amendments requiring a special notification when a cookie is placed. Cookies are small pieces of text and/or numbers, stored on a user's computer by a web browser, containing the user's settings, shopping cart contents, or other data used by websites to function efficiently, such as for authentication purposes, to help remember user names, passwords, choices of languages or family-safe modes, as well as to personalise content.

Neither the parliament, nor national governments, have allegedly conducted a prior impact assessment of the economic or legal impact of new rules on cookies. Under the new proposals, users would either have to opt-in to accept use of cookies or require websites to pop-up windows for users every time they visit. This would slow the user experience and disrupt Internet usage.

Such a measure is impractical and will upset users, and is unnecessary since the law already foresees that websites provide users with clear and precise information about the purposes of the cookies they use. Users can also manage cookies through the settings of a browser or other applications.

Speaking on behalf of the European Publishers Council, the organisation's chairman, Francisco Pinto Balsemão, said: “Users would be faced with repeated pop-up or virtual windows every time they visit a web page. This will not only slow down the provision of Internet services and diminish the user experience, but impact negatively the further uptake of mobile Internet, where functionality is key to the user experience."

"Wrong decision"

He continued: "There is a grave danger that the wrong decision will be taken in the mistaken belief that this will improve consumer protection, when all it will do is wreak economic damage to our businesses online. The result will be a meaningless click-through exercise that puts European industry into a competitive disadvantage. Industry shares the EU's objective of preserving trust in the digital marketplace.

“But it is important that MEPs, governments and the Commission recognise that cookies play an essential, harmless role in supporting the technology behind our online business models and, at the same time, are positively helpful in terms of the user experience.”

In an effort to reach agreement on the overall telecoms package, these last-minute changes could sacrifice the interest of the media and advertising businesses, consumers and the Internet economy as a whole.

For more, go to www.allaboutcookies.org.