[VIPStephan]

Originally Posted by mlseim

And as far as I know ... there is nothing dangerous with cookies.

It depends what you define as “dangerous”. Cookies can, for example, be used to track your interaction on websites and create a detailed user profile about you that could be used to your disadvantage. Let’s use Facebook as example: Wherever there is a “Like” button (or any FB widget) on a site, Facebook stores a cookie in your browser and adds new info to that cookie to store which FB users’ sites you have visited (among other things, most likely). With enough data a clear profile of your personality can be created, even if you’re not even registered at Facebook. And if you decide to register at Facebook some time later, the info from that cookie is used to suggest you exactly those people as friends whose websites you have visited, among other things.

Now, this might sound harmless to some people but there are increasing efforts to use just that data for police or even tax investigation (no kidding, there has just recently been a highly criticized announcement from a German credit agency that was researching the possibilities of using information from social networks to help in determining the personal credit rating). They know almost everything about you exactly with the help of cookies.

Originally Posted by mlseim

Cookies add effective, positive features to a website/browser experience.
The same thing for AJAX, JQuery and SESSIONS.

Of course, cookies can be useful. So can smartphones, but look for how much useless crap they are used nowadays. As soon as something useful for mankind is invented someone comes by and misuses it for irrelevant crap, just because it’s possible.

The point of that directive is that websites are generally forbidden to store cookies in the user’s browser that are unrelated to the actions/intentions the user takes/has, unless the user actively opts in. Here is the relevant paragraph about that from an interesting read about that law as passed in the UK:

The only cookies that do not need users' consent are those that are necessary to fulfill the user's request. That will cover, for example, the use of cookies to remember the contents of a user's shopping cart as the user moves through several pages on a website. Other cookies, including those used to count visitors to a site and those used to serve advertising, will require consent.

That means, any tracking cookies or cookies that have nothing to do with the direct enhancement of the user experience, are forbidden and need consent.