Compliance and EU: Tightening of Controls Not only for Financial Markets. The “Cookies” Directive

The international landscape and interaction among laws, regulations and professional standards is the daily headache for many managers. SOXO, probably the most notorious act when it comes to compliance, impacts many US quoted European companies, but more often than not even non US quoted companies will have their own internal compliance requirements to deal with US corporates. The European homologue of the SOXO Act being  a EU Directive on Statutory Accounts and Audits.

EU on the other side, does have his own legislation, to regulate EU markets and entities dealing with the European Regulated markets. Specifically the 2009 EU Directive, known as the “Cookie Directive”  states :”Third parties may wish to store information on the equipment of a user, or gain access to information already stored, for a number of purposes, ranging from the legitimate (such as certain types of cookies) to those involving unwarranted intrusion into the private sphere (such as spyware or viruses). It is therefore of paramount importance that users be provided with clear and comprehensive information when engaging in any activity which could result in such storage or gaining of access.”

So be aware marketing managers from the 25th of May 2011 the use of cookies to track customer behaviour online, is subject to customers opting for cookies to be installed on their pc, it is basically the same “opt in” option that apply  to SMS, MMS, e-mails communications.

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