I am getting rather tired of all those little pop-ups that jump at me whenever I visit a UK web site.

You know the ones I mean?  All telling me that they use “cookies” and is that OK by me?  Really fucking irritating.

I decided to investigate a bit further and find out what it is all about.

I found it in the end.  There is an “EU Directive” called “Directive 2009/136/EC of the European Parliament” which is responsible.  It’s worth reading if only to see how much utter bullshit can be fitted on one web page.  There again. if you value your sanity, then don’t.

It waffles on about such matters as the number of public telephone kiosks that should be available to the public and how service providers have the responsibility to eliminate spam.  I would love to know how much that cost by way of exorbitant salaries and overpaid expenses?  About half way down I came across the offending paragraph –

(66) Third parties may wish to store information on the equipment of a user, or gain access to information already stored, for a number of purposes, ranging from the legitimate (such as certain types of cookies) to those involving unwarranted intrusion into the private sphere (such as spyware or viruses). It is therefore of paramount importance that users be provided with clear and comprehensive information when engaging in any activity which could result in such storage or gaining of access. The methods of providing information and offering the right to refuse should be as user-friendly as possible. Exceptions to the obligation to provide information and offer the right to refuse should be limited to those situations where the technical storage or access is strictly necessary for the legitimate purpose of enabling the use of a specific service explicitly requested by the subscriber or user. Where it is technically possible and effective, in accordance with the relevant provisions of Directive 95/46/EC, the user’s consent to processing may be expressed by using the appropriate settings of a browser or other application. The enforcement of these requirements should be made more effective by way of enhanced powers granted to the relevant national authorities.

Sooner or later all European countries have to pass this crap into law, and it just happens that the UK is a bit ahead of the rest.  So far from being a flash in the pan, we are soon to be inundated with all these pop-ups and slidey messages on every fucking web site in Europe. 

Even I am supposed to stick them on this site.

They can fuck themselves.

Sue me.

As an afterthought, I went into the EU’s main site – europa.eu – to see how they handled their own directive.

Nothing popped up or slid into view.  No mention of cookies.  Maybe they don’t use them?

Then I checked in my browser where it stores cookies –

Fucking hypocrites.