Tracking revealed
There are on average 14 tracking tools per webpage on the UK’s most popular sites, according to a study.
Privacy solutions provider Truste suggests that means a user typically encounters up to 140 cookies and other trackers while browsing a single site.
The research was published less than 40 days before strict rules come into effect governing cookie use.
The study was carried out in March and covered the UK’s 50 most visited organisations.
The firm said that 68% of the trackers analysed belonged to third-parties, usually advertisers, rather than the site’s owner.
“It’s not illegal to do the tracking – the question is whether you are giving consumers enough awareness that it is happening and what you are doing with the data.”
Deadline
On 26 May the UK’s Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) imposes an EU directive designed to protect internet users’ privacy.
The law says that sites must provide “clear and comprehensive” information about the use of cookies – small files which allow a site to recognise a visitor’s device.
It says website managers must:
Tell people that the cookies are there
Explain what the cookies are doing
Obtain visitors’ consent to store a cookie on their device
“The information needs to be upfront – without information people can’t give consent,” the ICO’s principal policy adviser for technology, Simon Rice, told the BBC.
For full story here is BBC link
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