Europe Should Abandon Its Expensive Internet Cookies Law

The European Commission is reviewing the 2009 ePrivacy directive, which regulates HTTP cookies. Unfortunately, this directive has produced a rash of unintended consequences that have real costs for European citizens and businesses with few or no upsides. Rather than simply update the ePrivacy directive to ensure that it is in line with the EU’s recently passed data protection regulation, policymakers now have an opportunity to repeal the “cookie" provisions entirely, write Alan McQuinn and Daniel Castro in EurActiv.