We need a cookie pop up

[The Craw]

Well I'm curious now. I've tried this over and over again following these steps:

1) Clear all cookies
2) Turn off cookie storage
3) Login to the site, navigate around
4) Check cookie list to see if anything was saved anyway, and non are

What the heck? Maybe I'm just special. xD

[Roph]

Stop giving that [expletive] law credibility by paying attention to it. Ignore that piece of [expletive].

[Arantor]

We'll stop giving it due attention (as it's a law in our country) when you stop giving the DMCA the same attention.

[Kindred]

Roph,

You may disagree with a law... However, once it is actually a law, you need to obey it. Unless YOU are willing to go to jail or get fined for breaking the law in order to make a statement, I suggest that you do not judge other people for choosing to follow the law - and, even if you are, you still don't get to recommend that other people break it.

[kat]

The original topic: http://www.simplemachines.org/community/index.php?topic=474727.0
My github repo with the code: https://github.com/emanuele45/EU-cookie-law

I think there is some issue not solved in the mod, but it should more or less work.

I can confirm that that's the one my hostess uses and it seems fine.

[peaksparkles]

"SMF has said in the past it does not care about UK laws because it is based in the US, so it won't be a core feature, though a mod was written to deal with it.".....

The UK Gov said the same about a British hacker wanted in the US....lol

[Arantor]

You know as well as I do that US law works in US' favour only

[MrPhil]

"does not care about UK laws" is perhaps a bit flippant. A calmer statement would be that being based in the US, UK laws don't apply to the operations of Simple Machines. However, UK laws would certainly apply to any installation of SMF based in the UK. I don't know the legal status of SMF based in, say, the US, but being used in the UK (such as this forum itself). It would certainly be a nuisance to have to know about, much less obey, hundreds of different (and sometimes conflicting) laws from each country you operate in. It does happen from time to time, such as eBay being censored in France because someone was selling Nazi memorabilia on it (IIRC).

US law works in US' favour only

Show me a country, any country, that (deliberately and knowingly) writes it laws to favor another country and hurt itself. I add the D&K specifier because the US does this (presumably inadvertently) quite often.

[Arantor]

"does not care about UK laws" is perhaps a bit flippant.

I'm not a project representative, so I can be flippant. However, I would note that that is a fairly accurate interpretation of the commentary when this was first pulled up.

Show me a country, any country, that (deliberately and knowingly) writes it laws to favor another country and hurt itself

Well done for missing my point.

You can have a law that applies equally in each direction and you can have a law that favours the current country in question.

The case in point was of one Gary McKinnon. A 'cracker' who was in the UK who 'broke' (I use the term loosely, a system that has a blank password is not secure) into NASA systems amongst others.

I bring this up because there is an extradition treaty in force between the US and the UK. The US can ask for - and invariably be given - anyone it likes, which caused an awful lot of stir in this country (seeing how McKinnon was on UK soil when committing the offence, but that was a small detail, and the charges were very deliberately escalated). The UK actually has to make the case that the person did something wrong in this country before the US will even consider it - and in the past this has often been denied even when due process has been followed.

This is what I mean about the US law working in US' favour only. Not being solely in US' favour != being in another country's favour.

[Antechinus]

My recollection is that the issue was later clarified (at least in the UK) that the law did not apply to session cookies, but only to tracking cookies. Vanilla SMF therefore does not need to say anything about cookies, but if you add something like Google Analytics, you would have to at least warn visitors that tracking cookies are in use.

Of course, it doesn't hurt to tell visitors that you use session cookies, but both common sense and (AFAIK) the law (at least in the UK) don't require it.

There certainly was clarification at the last minute from our government, and there is still the very vague definition of 'implied consent', however other parts of Europe did not grant such exceptions.

What I ended up doing was just have links, from the home page intro and from the forum footer linkfest, to a custom article that explains the situation (only basic session cookies for site functionality, no tracking cookies) and also gives instructions for blocking cookies in all the major browsers, both on a blanket and per site basis.

I figure this complies with the spirit of the law, and actually gives more infomation than is legally required since we're telling them how to block cookies from any site on the web at their own discretion.

It also requires no mods, and is less annoying for most users than silly pop-up stuff. F%&k knows the internet could do with fewer pop-ups. I don't think anyone really wants them.

PS: This is for a UK-based organisation with a server in Texas, and global membership.