As the EU Cookie law deadline looms, are you prepared? Perhaps you’re not aware of the Law? Here’s a quick run-down:

So what exactly are Cookies used for?

Cookies are used by almost all websites, for a variety of purposes:

• Analysis of user behaviour (Analytics)
• To personalise pages and remember visitor preferences
• To manage shopping baskets in online stores
• To track users across websites and deliver targeted advertising

So many questions…

What? Websites must obtain consent from visitors

Why? To protect online user privacy

Who? The law is regulated by The Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO)

When? The Law is already in effect as a ‘grace period’. This will end on May 26^th, 2012

Not Compliant? You could receive up to half a million pounds fine (extreme cases only!)

So what should you do?

• Audit your site to find out what cookies your website has
• Find out what these cookies are used for, and which ones you need to get consent for (there are some exemptions)
• Work out how to get consent from your visitors to set cookies on their device. See some great examples here>>

Google has apparently won the first leg of what appears to be a significant legal struggle against some of the world’s most recognised luxury brands as a European Union court advisor said that the search engine did not violate their trademarks.

In an interim legal judgement, Google was not found guilty of breaking trademark rights by the European court of Justice because no products or services was being sold directly to the general public.

Advocate General Poiares Maduro said in a statement that “Google has not infringed trade mark rights by allowing advertisers to buy keywords corresponding to registered trademarks”, something that French Luxury powerhouse LVMH strenuously opposes.

The fashion conglomerate claims that Google was intrinsically wrong to accept payments for the company’s many brands in its adwords advertising system. Ironically, many of those keywords generated adverts that linked to fake LVMH products.

LVMH won a legal action in France and started to sue Google over trademark infringement since June 2008; the use of trademarks in Adwords acceptable in the US and any decisions in the EU doesn’t cover the rest of the world.

Google derives significant revenue from what is essentially the name of other companies as well as trademarks and one could argue that intellectual property owners should get a cut of the profits.

Source : ITProPortal

The UK Government have today announced their report dubbed “Digital Britain” in which they have laid out plans for universal access to broadband by 2012.

Prime Minister Gordon Brown said digital technology was as important today as “roads, bridges and trains were in the 20th Century”.

The report called for everyone in the UK to have access to a broadband speed of up to two megabits per second (Mbps).

This would make internet connections capable of handling much more video and sites that offer greater interactivity.

By the time of the final report, the government will know whether internet service providers (ISPs) can build next generation networks themselves or if government help will be needed.

• Download the full report here >>