WordPress and Cookies

vegplotting · Member · Jul 4, 2012 at 9:45 am
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ldhltd – your news re the Commissioner’s revised guidance is welcome. However, I suspect most WP users won’t know which widgets they’re using use cookies. I’d make a stab at WP itself (e.g. for gathering stats), Twitter feed (if used), after that I’m stumped.

Is there a way of finding out which widgets use cookies, or is it sufficient to say in your cookies policy that you’re using widgets some or all of which may be using them and give a couple of examples?
vegplotting · Member · Jul 4, 2012 at 9:47 am
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PS I’d also link to WP’s privacy policy
ldhltd · Member · Jul 4, 2012 at 10:02 am
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@vegplotting Well I’m not a legal expert and the Information Commissioner’s advice had a lot of people including Ministers and Government Departments confused, but if in doubt I think listing the key suspect widgets, eg anything that collects or feeds data … not images … and saying that (a) cookies may be used (b) they are controlled by external sites and that users should check the cookie policy on that external site should cover you. Obviously don’t use the word ‘widget’ itself as nobody would have a clue what that meant! Policies can be fairly general, they are expected to remain up to date for a fair time, you can’t be checking every aspect every day. And yes, I also link to WP’s own privacy policy: if you’re clear where your responsibility lies and where users need to look at someone else’s policies you’re going a long way to being compliant. And if you really don’t know, saying you don’t know is more compliant than saying nothing or pretending you do know. The principles seem to rest on (a) transparency and (b) informed choice for the user, not being 100% perfect.

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