Very nicely done & some clever thinking behind it.

Thanks to +Ashley Friedlein for pointing it out as part of the mighty +Econsultancy comment thread on the subject:

http://econsultancy.com/uk/blog/9416-eu-cookie-law-uk-government-crumbles

The opt in itself can be seen at:

http://www.productsandservices.bt.com/

Tim

Hi Tim

Yes, it is a good example - thanks for explaining in more detail why. Must be nice for BT to be held out as an example of good practice for a change? ;)

(actually, to be fair, BT are doing quite a lot of good stuff online e.g. their online customer service is none too shabby).

Its a great example, from a UX perspective, i think the CTA for 'no thanks' should be more prominent

+Russell McAthy From a UX perspective there might also be some problems with the fact that it slides away if you do nothing, which would be bad if someone had started to read it. That might plant concerns. But I suspect that because sliders like these are used most often for feedback forms, cross-promotions within the site and email sign-ups etc a pattern may be emerging of "if something slides in down there it doesn't matter". So people will ignore it and thereby opt in because they have "continued".

That then raises the question of whether the visitor has then really provided explicit consent and we are back into the bigger argument. But nobody could suggest that BT have not made a very good attempt at full compliance here. Way more than most.

It would be extremely interesting to know what the opt-out rate is!

And +Matt Clarke has just posted a screen-shot of the pop-up used to control the privacy settings:

http://t.co/mOlAovpd

Tim

Tim - good spot and nice implementation, but I couldn't see reference to analytics cookie settings in the opt-in. They're not there are they?

I think they may be... Try turning off "functional" and "Improve overall performance of the web site" appears in the list of things that will not be happening.

I've just recorded a video of the process (which doesn't include the turning off "functional", pity) and uploaded it to YouTube:

http://youtu.be/rzAA2NuXTYY

Tim

Thanks for sharing Tim. I like the use of language - it's not making it sound intimidating, it's quite reassuring and it gently persuades people that by doing nothing they get the best possible experience. Still, I think most visitors won't have a clue what cookie is which then has the potential to cause concern and get some people to click on "change settings" for fear of being swallowed into the abyss of digital pain.

BT seem to have that eventuality well-covered too. I've just shared a screen shot of their slick interface for changing the settings. It doesn't explicitly mention 'web analytics' (jargon) but it does mention "improving the overall performance of the site".

As far as I know there must be an opt-in function for analytics, not an opt-out function, so this doesn't meet the requirements, or do you guys disagree?

I think the requirement may be for consent, rather than opt in. There's an interesting article on that point here:

http://www.ukaop.org.uk/news/eu-privacy-directive-consent-opt-in-cookies-evidon3549.html

I suspect that the BT thing might still not be 100% compliant. But since they have gone so very far in the direction of compliance when so few have done anything, I expect the chances of them being fined are tiny.