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Cookies, Websites & Privacy
EU ePrivacy Directive AKA ‘The Cookie Law’
Making Sense of the New Website Cookie Law
Under new EU privacy regulations, websites must make it clear to visitors what information is being stored about them.
When you visit the majority of websites, small text files are downloaded onto your computer called “cookies”. These files remain on your computer for a period of time, depending on the cookie. The cookies vary in importance, some track the pages you have visited, some remember your preferences and some help advertisers display adverts which is relevant to your interests.
The new privacy legislation essentially requires websites to obtain consent from visitors to store or retrieve any information on a computer or web connected device. This is where the cookies become relevant.
Certain cookies, which are deemed to be “strictly necessary”, are exempt from the change in the law, i.e. shopping carts or wordpress which requires cookies for the websites to work.
The biggest impact of the changes relates to analytics, such as Google Analytics, which are not exempt and therefore require permission from users.
Across the industry there are a wide variety of interpretations of the law and what needs to be done to comply, especially with many organisations keen to reduce the impact on behavioural advertising which relies on cookies to enable companies to target advertising based on a users’ online activity.
In essence our interpretation is that websites must do the following:
- Tell visitors that the cookies are there
- Explain what the cookies are doing
- Obtain consent to store a cookie on their device.
The key requirement is about consent and information – some form of communication where the individual knowingly indicates their acceptance of cookies and understanding of the cookies being used.
We have chosen the icon bar at the top of our pages which provides additional information, although other options are available.
Links
Find out what the big brands are doing to adapt to the directive
The BBC unveils its EU cookie law solution
Find out more about cookies
www.aboutcookies.org
Want a website?
Click Here to view our website packages
Add our solution to your wordpress or far’n'beyond website. email info@farnbeyond.com
Buying Website Names
Do you have control of your domain space?
At the very beginning of far’n’beyond we didn’t look ten years into the future or even five years into the future and when funds were tight, we were a little bit cheap when it came to our domain names!
We didn’t buy every important variation of our domain name or similar domains, which in retrospect we wished we had done.
Although we don’t mind sharing a name with Progressive Rock and Melodic metal band www.farnbeyond.net, we do wish we had complete control over the domain variations.
Purchasing the key domain names that were available at the time would have given us greater control of the brand space that we would now like for our domain. This includes names which are similar to far’n’beyond such as “far and beyond”.
A company recently outbid us for the domain www.farandbeyond.com and have claimed they will only accept a 4 figures sum to release to ourselves or alternatively we can embark on a US legal battle which is well beyond our budgets.
Fortunately we rank very highly in search engines and although frustrating, the company who owns farandbeyond.com offers no direct competition to our business. It would be a different scenario if they were a print or design company.
Recommendations
From our experience we would always give the following tips to anyone who is looking to build an online presence, either now or in the future:
Make It Clear
Try and find a memorable domain name which is easy to say over the phone with nothing clever which is going to confuse customers.
Own a Space
Select a name which is different from your competitors and purchase at least the .co.uk, .com and .net versions of the name and any country extensions where you operate now or may in the future.
Look at other extensions which may suit your business in the future – i.e. .mobi for mobile/application websites.
Use Your Website Domains
Select the domain which is most suitable i.e. www.ReallyGoodBranding.com and ensure all variations of the domain forward to your main website and email domain. Only use one domain across all your marketing and email communication. This should reduce visitor confusion and ensure the maximum impact from your website.
Keep them all together
Ensuring all your domain names are purchased in the same place under the same account will help you keep control of your online presence. Ideally also host your website and emails from the same company. This will mean you only need one point of contact to address any issues or changes.
Check Your Domain
Click Here to see if your domain name is available?
We Recommend… Really Good Hosting
Obviously, we would recommend ourselves for your website hosting and domain purchases. For our clients it enables us to make changes to websites quickly and easily and from our experience it also gives peace of mind.
All our websites are hosted with The Really Good Hosting Company and we benefit from 24/7 Support which replies within one hour to all enquiries.
The online control panel gives you complete control of your domains, email accounts and hosting.
Design | Print | Digital
The Common Room
Websites Design & Creation
The Common Room is a popular venue, offering a range of nights, from hosting sporting events to comedy gigs.
Our Standard Package was a perfect fit for our clients brief, having created many websites catering towards the express needs for websites before, we were able to offer the best meathods of promoting their brand.
Designed and built for search engine optimization with updates made using the branding and artwork of each event, the Common Room website also takes advantage of our guest list and membership management facility, merging with Facebook and Twitter social networking, hosting and email support services
www.commonroomculcheth.com
Design | Print | Digital
