Before announcing its big reorganization and renaming as Alphabet Inc., Google was busy getting compliant with the European Union’s cookie law. Matthew Lawless of Taft Stettinius & Hollister says the company recently sent letters to users of its AdSense, DoubleClick for Publishers and DoubleClick Ad Exchange programs, reminding them of their duty to obtain the end-user consent of EU customers.
“Cookies are pieces of data that a website stores on a user’s device, generally to provide what we’ve come to expect as basic site security and functionality,” he explains. The EU law only allows the storing of information in a cookie if the user has consented. So now Google is requiring companies using its software to follow this law, which is generally good practice, says Lawless, since all U.S. companies with EU customers are bound by it too.
