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ICO cracks down on cookie compliance with review of top 1,000 UK sites
Melanie May | 24 January 2025 | News
The action is to ensure websites are complying with data protection law by giving people meaningful choice on how their personal information is tracked and used online, and is part of the ICO’s online tracking strategy for 2025.
The ICO has already assessed 200 top sites, and communicated concerns to 134 of these.
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Stephen Almond, ICO Executive Director of Regulatory Risk said:
“Uncontrolled tracking intrudes on the most private parts of our lives and can lead to harm. For example, gambling addicts being targeted with more betting ads due to their browsing history or LGBTQ+ people altering their online behaviour for fear of unintended disclosure of their sexuality.
“Our ambition is to ensure everybody has meaningful choice over how they are tracked online and what we’re publishing today sets out how we intend to achieve that.”
He added:
“Last year, we saw significant improvements in compliance among the top 200 websites in what was a promising step forward for the industry. Now, we are expanding our focus to the top 1,000 websites – and beyond that to apps and connected TVs.
“We’ll continue to hold organisations to account but we’re also here to make it easier for publishers to adopt compliant, privacy-friendly business models. By combining advice, guidance, and targeted enforcement, we aim to create an environment where businesses can succeed, and people can have trust and control over their online experiences.”
This includes new guidance on ‘consent or pay’ models: where organisations give people a choice between agreeing to personalised adverts to access a service or paying to access a service and avoid personalised adverts. The guidance clarifies how organisations can use ‘consent or pay’ models and includes a set of factors for organisations to assess their models against to demonstrate people can freely give their consent.
Guidance for the public will also be released later in the year to help people navigate online tracking, their lawful rights to meaningful choice over their personal information and what to do if they have concerns about a website’s model.
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About Melanie May
Melanie May is a journalist and copywriter specialising in writing both for and about the charity and marketing services sectors since 2001. She can be reached via thepurplepim.com.