Philip Wride – Social Media Marketer and Community Manager

Before we get started, yes I know it’s not really called the EU Cookie Law but sticking ePrivacy Directive in the title might not have meant as much.

So back to the matter at hand. What does it mean for online communities? The directive states that websites are meant to seek consent from a user to drop certain types of cookies, primarily in the form of an opt-in process. If they are registering for access to something that’s a different ball game as that can be classed as active participation, at least from what I understand.

The big part of the directive is in relation to targeting and personally identifiable information (PII). Have you got targeted ads in your community? Do you drop cookies to record data and user behaviour at an individual user level? I know in my previous communities I was tracking contributions on a weekly basis to determine who were the biggest power users in each forum section but was a cookie involved in that? I’d have to ask the development team about that as it’s certainly something I wasn’t aware of. What about other activities or processes; Can you purchase through your community? Do you have surveys that request specific (and individual) user information that might drop a cookie to prevent them from completing it twice?

I guess some of these things could be rolled up in to the “the user is taking a direct action and therefore it’s ok” but some of the harmless activities in your community may come under scrutiny. One of the biggest will probably relate to the serving of adverts, especially through 3rd party networks. If you have those, whose responsibility is it to get a user to opt-in, yours or the 3rd party? How do you go about getting that consent, do you try a subtle approach so it doesn’t ruin user experience and turn people away from your community or will they expect you to be upfront about the issue?

Lots of things to consider with this and I guess the biggest thing is; do you know what cookies your community uses and what are they used for?