PARIS/LONDON (Reuters) – The European Commission plans to call Britain and Denmark to account for dragging their feet on enforcing a controversial new law to protect people’s privacy on-line, a spokesman said.
The move is a sign of how the war of words over so-called “cookie” reform is heating up a week after a deadline for European Union member states to adopt the rules into their national laws.
The EU e-privacy directive requires websites to obtain users’ explicit consent before allowing the storage of cookies, small pieces of text that Web browsers use to store information like website preferences, as well as track users’ movements from site to site.
The reform has been hotly contested by Internet companies, on-line advertisers and start-ups, who say it will handicap a tool that is central to how the Web operates.
“The problem is that you need cookies for the Web to work; it is how the Web
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