Cookies, those tiny bits of data that get popped onto your hard drive every time you visit certain websites, have fueled privacy concerns in the European Union and led its regulators to demand that consumers have transparency into how they are used, and have the ability to block them.
Although the first EU cookie directive dates back to 2012, enforcement has escalated in recent months. Officials in Spain and the Netherlands have fined companies for not being cookie compliant, and, last week, officials across the EU initiated a “cookie” sweep with a blitz of audits intended to make sure companies are in compliance. It isn’t just European companies that have to worry about these cookie sweeps, U.S. companies that reach into the EU may soon discover they too have compliance issues.
