It won't make people more aware, though.
People will just click "accept" as a reflex action because they'll get so used to the pop-ups appearing on every site to tell them about harmless cookies.
Anyone using a cookie maliciously could easily obfuscate what that cookie does in so much jargon that it is meaningless to the layman but still complies with the law.
It would have made far more sense for browsers to be made to pop up an alert when a site uses cookies (which could then be turned off), rather than make every website get an annoying pop up whether people care or not and which assumes that every website owner is aware of the law.
Ultimately, most people harvesting data do not save it in cookies anyway.
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monkeon schmonkeon, Wed 11 Jul 2012, 15:50,
Reply)
"It would have made far more sense for browsers to be made to pop up an alert when a site uses cookies"
I think every single browser since NCSA's mosaic has that option build in.
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Tusk knows where you live, Wed 11 Jul 2012, 16:19,
Reply)
They may do, but it isn't on by default.
(Presumably because no one wants it to be an in-your-face feature, so getting cookie information is quite a few clicks away.)
If the law is about making such information more visible, then that would seem a more sensible place to insist on it, anyway.
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monkeon schmonkeon, Wed 11 Jul 2012, 16:26,
Reply)