Background

from cookielaw.org

The Cookie Law is a new piece of privacy legislation that requires websites to obtain consent from visitors to store or retrieve any information on a computer or any other web connected device, like a smartphone or tablet.

It has been designed to protect online privacy, by making consumers aware of how information about them is collected by websites, and enable them to choose whether or not they want to allow it to take place.

It started as an EU Directive that was adopted by all EU countries on May 26th 2011. At the same time the UK updated its Privacy and Electronic Communications Regulations, which brought the EU Directive it into UK law.

There was a one year grace period in the UK, which ran out in May 2012.

Each EU member state has done or is doing the same thing. Although they all have their own approach and interpretation, the basic requirements of the directive remain the same.

Exact requirements

Unfortunately as individual member states set their own rules based on their interpretation of the legislation, there is a lot of confusion over the exact requirements needed to resolve this issue. In addition, member organizations have changed their minds over time e.g. the UK reduced their requirement

Generally speaking sites that want to meet this requirement do one of a few things:

• update your privacy page text via the admin->languages editor and add a link to https://www.dnnsoftware.com/Resources/Wiki/Page/DotNetNuke-Cookie-usage.aspx , or lift the detail from that page and add it as text
  

• use a free extensions such asdnncookieconsent to fix it
  

• use a commercial extension to resolve this.
  

• add a jquery plugin into their skin e.g any of these listed here