Cookies, Warnings as Competitive Disadvantages

European Union websites, starting on May 25, 2011, will have to ask permission to install "cookies" on user machines. Too late, it seems, website operators are discovering that they likely are going to face greater end user refusal, and consequently less ability to monetize user engagement, compared to similar and competing sites that do not have to comply with the EU rules.

'If we are suddenly required to put big pop-up boxes warning people that they are going to be tracked, even if they are for benign reasons, the user won't read the warning and will just go to a US site that does not have that same warning," says Nick Halstead of Mediasift.

"Do Not Track" is being considered in the United States as well. But there are unintended consequences, as EU websites apparently are about to discover.

BBC - dot.Rory: Cookie madness or consumer protection?: