Global Cookie Review.

6 January 2021
 

We are pleased to announce publication of the first edition of our Global Cookie Review. This new report will be the first of a regular series providing a global overview of the legal and regulatory landscape relating to the use of cookies and similar technologies. This report will be regularly updated with new developments and trends, together with analysis of additional territories.
 

As regulators across the world continue to increase their focus on the use of cookies and other similar devices for targeted advertising, we are seeing an increasing amount of regulation that, either directly or indirectly, governs the use of these technologies, often (but not always) following a similar path to that historically set by the EU within the GDPR, ePrivacy Directive (and forthcoming Privacy and Electronic Communications Regulation). Common themes unsurprisingly include transparency and consent requirements, with cookie banners (including consent management platforms) being an increasingly frequent sight across the globe. In Europe, we are also seeing an increasing number of individual complaints from data subjects and privacy activists, leading to a greater focus than ever on cookie-related compliance from data protection authorities.
 

This report covers key legal frameworks across the globe and answers some of the key questions that are important to consider when looking to make use of these technologies. These considerations apply equally whether these frameworks are specific to cookies or more broadly applicable to personal data but mapping across to the use of cookies and the data collected through such technologies.
 

As a final note, cookies and similar technologies are very commonly used as part of targeted advertising through the use of adtech. Globally, adtech as a sector is under increasing scrutiny from regulators and, as such, provision and use of adtech comes with additional considerations, whether relating to cookies or more broadly. We are also seeing seismic shifts in the industry on the horizon, driven by commercial changes throughout the ecosystem. As such, we have specifically included notes on the use of these technologies in an adtech context and we anticipate significant additional considerations to be addressed in future issues of this report.