How to encourage law breaking and restrain trade: and other Eurowanks

Did you know there is a new European law about to come in – and it cannot be stopped now – that will prevent anyone putting cookies on a site?

This brilliant idea will of course among other things make it impossible for you to measure the results of your internet marketing. It will also – if everyone follows the rules – actually encourage bad marketing, as you won’t know enough about prospects and customers to talk to them in a relevant fashion.

There is an excellent piece about it by a Pinsent Mason lawyer which starts with a wonderful remark: A law that demands consent to internet cookies has been approved and will be in force across the EU within 18 months. It is so breathtakingly stupid that the normally law-abiding business may be tempted to bend the rules to breaking point.

You can find the whole piece at www.out-law.com/default.aspx?page=10510. However, my partner Marta has some interesting comments. She used to be in the internet gaming business and said that based on her experience this may play out like this:

1. Firms will move their HQs to places where this law does not apply – e. g. Andorra.

2. European governments will lose massive amounts of tax revenue

3. They will rescind the law.

Here are two reasons why I really don’t like the idea of a United States of Europe.

First, I never voted for any of these people. Second, nothing they do encourages trade. For instance, their tariff protection is killing poor third world countries. This is also true of the U.S., by the way. What happens is in the following five lunatic steps:

1. We raise import taxes against their stuff.

2. Their economies decline.

3. We send billions in aid and give to aid charities.

4. Their kleptomaniac rulers steal it.

5. Our idiot politicians fly round the world to conferences where they decide how much more aid these crooks should get.

Brilliant, eh?

About the Author

In 2003, the Chartered Institute of Marketing named Drayton one of 50 living individuals who have shaped today’s marketing.

He has worked in 55 countries with many of the world’s greatest brands. These include American Express, Audi, Bentley, British Airways, Cisco, Columbia Business School, Deutsche Post, Ford, IBM, McKinsey, Mercedes, Microsoft, Nestle, Philips, Procter & Gamble, Toyota, Unilever, Visa and Volkswagen.

Drayton has helped sell everything from Airbus planes to Peppa Pig. His book, Commonsense Direct and Digital Marketing, out in 17 languages, has been the UK’s best seller on the subject every year since 1982. He has also run his own businesses in the U.K., Portugal and Malaysia.

He was a main board member of the Ogilvy Group, a founding member of the Superbrands Organisation, one of the first eight Honorary Fellows of the Institute of Direct Marketing and one of the first three people named to the Hall of Fame of the Direct Marketing Association of India. He has also been given Lifetime Achievement Awards by the Caples Organisation in New York and Early To Rise in Florida.

4 Comments

  1. What an alarming thought. What will this mean for website stats packages like Google Analytics? And what will it mean for the entire affiliate marketing community?

  2. This is absolutely ridiculous. The governments are literally cutting their own throats as well as those of business owners. And, in turn of the public as they'll need to start looking elsewhere to raise cash.

    I think I've timed my decision to go offline just right.

  3. DaveC

    I like your 5 steps. So succinct. Too bad most politicians and bureaucrats aren't smart enough to understand.

  4. drayblog@spoharax.com

    “Law …prevent anyone putting cookies on a site?”

    Ummh! No!

    The logistics of this idea make it impossible.

    Even China has problems and they have serious firewall creators.

    Try checking 'The Economist” and “The Financial Times” before you start listening to Marta.

    Kind Regards

    Shannon O'Hara

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