With the Information Commissioner’s Office in the UK announcing a consultation on their new draft direct marketing code of practice on 8^th January, data continues to be a major flashpoint for large groups of people. It’s not just an issue in the UK either. The French national information regulator, the National Commission for Information Technology and Liberties (CNIL) has this week launched a follow-up consultation on draft regulations created following an earlier process of engagement from the summer of last year. The subject? Cookies. Not the exciting ones beloved of American suburban ‘moms’, but digital ones online.

For the uninitiated, less-computer savvy or digitally apathetic amongst us, cookies are small pieces of data which are sent from websites and stored on your computer’s web browser whilst you are browsing. Mostly they are used to remember important information such as what you added to your basket when shopping online, what buttons you clicked on or whether you logged in to a website where you have an account. For a long time, they have been controversial, and over the years various efforts had been made to tackle them with GDPR being one of the latest endeavours that, in part at least, introduces a wrinkle into their usage.

The French guidance on the usage of cookies in targeted advertising has already caused some consternation amongst advertisers, who have expressed concerns about how changes in guidance might threaten their business models. Nine professional associations across the industry have already made representations criticising not only the guidance but the scope of the consultation, saying that a focus in the questions on consent management misses opportunities to consider other matters such as commercial and sales prospecting. Although they are hardly an unbiased body, some of their concerns about how even-handedly the guidelines deal with the matter and whether the right balance is struck between privacy and economic advertising concerns could have broader impacts on the state of the economy. This risk was starkly demonstrated recently after Google announced that third-party cookies will no longer work on their browser within two years, and one of the French advertisers immediately plummeted 25% on the stock market.

It looks like the responses to the consultation could be an interesting one to watch, and with data a continuing hotspot it will be interesting to see how the CNIL balance the competing priorities of industry and privacy.