On 10 June 2021, the Authority for the protection of personal data approved the new Guidelines on cookies.
First of all, what are cookies? It’s all information that refers to the actions performed by a user on a site and that is stored to allow you to navigate between pages efficiently, remembering the user's preferences and, more generally, improving his experience. They can also help ensure that the advertisements shown while browsing are of interest to you, avoiding unwelcome promotional initiatives or not in line with the user's needs.
Furthermore, according to the purpose of use of cookies, these can be divided into:
- Technical cookies: they are used to allow the transmission of a communication over an electronic communications network or to provide a service expressly requested by the user. They are not used for other purposes.
- Profiling cookies: they are aiming at creating profiles relating to the user and are used to send targeted promotional messages according to the preferences expressed while surfing the net. These cookies can be used for these purposes only with the user's consent.
With the new provisions, the Authority declares that "Consent should be expressed through an unequivocal positive act with which the interested party expresses the free, specific, informed and unequivocal intention to accept the processing of personal data concerning him". In this way, the most common methods of acquiring consent are inhibited:
- SCROLLING: the simple "scroll down" that allowed you to accept and close the cookie policy simply by scrolling the page.
- COOKIE WALL: binding mechanism in which the user is obliged, without alternative, to express his consent to the receipt of cookies, otherwise he is unable to access the site.
The banners for the collection of consent shall therefore contain:
- the X on the top right corner in order to close the banner without having to accept the policy
- the warning that closing the banner implies the persistence of the default settings and therefore the continuation of navigation in the absence of cookies or other tracking tools other than technical ones;
- a minimum information relating to the fact that the site uses cookies and may, only after obtaining the user's consent, also use profiling cookies or other tracking tools in order to send personalized advertising messages;
- a command through which it is possible to express one's consent (the boxes to be flagged must not be pre-selected);
- link to the privacy policy
- link to the cookie policy
Given the possible complexity in the configuration of the new banners, the Guarantor has dedicated 6 months to the owners of the websites to adapt to the new rules.
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