I saw in the referral keywords for this site yesterday the following phrase:

what is google analytics doing about cookie rules?

With only 2 more days until 'C day' (the date on which the EU cookie regulations are supposed to come into effect) Google has failed to address any concerns about Google Analytics cookies and how they will be affected by the rulings. In fact, strangely, for a company that spent 607 MILLION DOLLARS on marketing in the first quarter of 2011, they have been very very quiet on this issue.

There has been some clarification on the jurisdiction of the ruling. According to an article on eWeek.com, any website that has customers in the EU must comply with the Privacy and Electronic Communications Directive, including the contentious issue of opt-in cookie usage.

In the US, draft regulation of a similar sort is being discussed, which has the more sensible opt-out approach to tracking cookies, and only third pary cookies are to be affected.In an industry that is worth $300 billion to the US economy, it would be unwise to shackle businesses with unrealistic demands. However, the EU directive does not see things the same way, and prefers to place personal privacy far above economic factors.

In the Netherlands, the implimentation of the directive allows for consent to be based on browser settings - if your browser is set to allow third party cookies, then this implies consent to use them. This in itself is not ideal since many web users are unaware of their browsers privacy and cookie handling options, and just leave them on the default settings, but it is a much better solution than having popups or warnings flashed at you every time a cookie is requested.

We'll see what happens with the ICO's own website on Thursday. At present, when you visit this site, 5 cookies are stored on your browser without your explicit consent (including Google Analytics cookies). So if the ICO stop using Google Analytics, then maybe we will have to too.