This is an important alert from Osborne Clark solicitors about restrictive new European rules governing the use of cookies on websites. They warn:

“European regulators have never quite got their heads around why cookies are so fundamental to the efficient functioning of the Internet. And, as if further demonstration of their lack of understanding were required, they have tinkered with cookie regulation once again – this time with potentially disastrous results for e-commerce in the EU.”

For more information, check out the cookie monster alert on their website.

Tags: CIE, Europe, Legislation, Online

An interesting case about data protection is reported by the Marketing Law website (registration required), where delegate lists were ultimately deemed not to be “personal information” and therefore not protected by the Data Protection Act. As always, the lawyers at Osbourne Clarke provide detailed analysis of the ruling, concluding that if a delegate’s name can be correlated with the organisation that they are representing, then the data is protected.

So if you are organising conferences, make sure you get permission if you plan to circulate delegate lists with company information to other attendees. And if, like us, you work in PR, I’m afraid that this ruling doesn’t allow show organisers to provide the complete press list – you’ll still need to work the phones to find out which editors will attend each show.

Tags: Legislation, Shows and Events, UK