Lately I've been seeing more and more cookie information pages on websites [1], due to the EU regulation. A lot of pages provide the same, basic information about pages;

  1. What are cookies
  2. How do cookies work
  3. How we use cookies
  4. An overview of the cookies beeing used on the site
  5. What to do if you don't give consent for cookies being used

Currently, with the EU Cookie Compliance module, the site maintainer has to create an information page on cookies being used on your website. We could facilitate a site maintainer by providing a default information page with this information (which can be overriden of course).

In order to provide automaticaly (4) an overview of cookies used, this module could provide a hook to acquire the needed information from other modules. By doing so the cookie information provided by the cookie setting modules.

Best,
VinceW

PS: I found a sponsor who is willing to provide time/code to implement this feature :-)

Example(s);
[1] http://www.springermedia.nl/cookies/ (dutch)

Comments

VinceW’s picture

VinceW commented

Some additional information. More or less a general outline of my feature request.

This feature isn't auditing all installed modules whether they set cookies or not. It's depending on community efforts to use the hook and provide information. A site admin also has a responsibility to check whether a installed module is setting cookies or not.

  • eur_cookie_compliance.module
    • additional menu item the information page
    • additional menu item to the information-admin page
    • hook to call for cookie information from (contrib/core) modules
    • modulename
    • cookie name
    • cookie type
    • cookie data storage
    • cookie purpose
  • informationpage.admin.inc
    • default textbloks in variables (editable by authorized users)
    • selection boxes to select those text boxes
    • per textbox a link for additional information ( wikipedia for instance) Also stored as (changeable and selectable) variable
    • Option to show/not to show the hook information
    • Optional link to own defined information page if site admin want to override this information page
  • informationpage.inc
    • Check if own information page is prefered over this default page.
    • show selected options on the information page, or go to own created information page
    • Based on the retrieved hook information the page could generate a "cookie use level" (we only use for UI and don't track data or something like that, but thats perhaps another feature :-)

RFC:
Please review this outline of feature functionality. If anyone sees any improvement, please add them here in the queue. Working code is going to be published in this queue.

Miszel’s picture

Miszel commented

Here is a list of issues that are somewhat related and hence should be taken into consideration while developing this feature:

http://drupal.org/node/1605144
http://drupal.org/node/1605134
http://drupal.org/node/1577970
http://drupal.org/node/1569478

AFowle’s picture

AFowle
he/him
commented

I appreciate the Drupal hook approach used here, but I am not sure the feature is needed because
a) I'm not sure that much detail is needed for compliance. It seems to me that something along the lines of
" This site uses cookies for its own function, and for linking to Google analytics and x, y &z" would do.

b) If more information is needed on which cookies are set, there must surely be a Drupal api function that would list them and could be used to dump them on a page with pretty formatting?

If the information is really needed, at least the approach in (b) would tell you which cookies you were not getting hooks for.

AFowle’s picture

AFowle
he/him
commented

I find the banners in the footer or header are an eyesore, and it gets worse as more sites join in. I hide them when I have accepted the cookies. This makes it difficult to unset them, and to remember which sites use them. The alternative cookie control module retains a small icon, although the colours don't suit.I think a Drupal block might be a useful way to do this, then site admins could place it where it worked best and the style would match.

VinceW’s picture

VinceW commented

related to #2 I looked into those issues.

#1605144: Default Policy
#1605134: Policy Updates
#1577970: Provide a means to Un-set
#1569478: Un-consenting

I notice that none of the issues has matured enough to be usefull for the informationpage feature request at the moment. I suggest to discuss those issues in there own ticket and -if- there is a usefull outcome, we implement it on the informationpage. This way the tickets stay on topic. I will put my responses in those issues.

VinceW’s picture

VinceW commented

#3

a) I think we need to provide information, based on:

Information to be provided:
Cookies or similar devices must not be used unless the subscriber or user of the relevant terminal equipment:
(a) is provided with clear and comprehensive information about the purposes of the storage of, or access to, that information; and
(b) has given his or her consent.

as stated on: http://www.ico.gov.uk/for_organisations/privacy_and_electronic_communica...

b) Currently I'm not aware of any drupal (api) function that can be used to list the cookies beeing set by drupal (core or modules). If I missed that function, I'm glad to be informed (saves duplicate coding).

Do we want this module to actively check for cookie setting code or do we want cookie setting code to be transparent and provide information about the setting of the cookie. I prefer the latter, since setting cookies (way, purpose, information usage, etc) can by realy divers, it's almost impossible to audit all code for this.

VinceW’s picture

VinceW commented

#4

I think this is related to #1577970: Provide a means to Un-set and that this should be discussed there. If we come up with a workable solution there, we can decide if the information page is the best place for it.

Miszel’s picture

Miszel commented

I find the banners in the footer or header are an eyesore, and it gets worse as more sites join in.

This is out of the topic but I think it is worth mentioning that there are templates for the banners that can be easily overridden in your theme. Many sites do so. For example: http://www.touchcardiology.com They use the same EU Cookie Compliance module. They just changed the feel and look of the banner.

Miszel’s picture

Miszel commented

Hi Vince, is anything happening with this issue?

achton’s picture

achton
Location Denmark
commented

I am about to implement a "lite" version of this feature for 6.x that acts very much like the expanded dropdown at http://cookielaw.org, when you hit "Find out more". A few textfields on the admin side will supply the editable info for site owners.

I think my feature should be able to expand to what is outlined in #1, if there is an option to toggle between expanding the dropdown, or showing the info on a seperately generated page as suggested in the issue summary.

I will provide a patch here.

achton’s picture

achton
Location Denmark
commented
Issue summary: View changes

Added notice about sponsor, so maintainer knows it's not all up to him.

svenryen’s picture

svenryen commented
Issue summary: View changes
Status: Active » Closed (works as designed)