dstiles - 10:53 pm on Mar 6, 2012 (gmt 0)

wingnut - no. On the browser.

Although the server needs to know you have accepted them if it wants to track (eg) a shopping cart. The server then retains the session info for about 20 minutes (depending on server setup) after the last site access.

Unlike some permanent cookies which are often used to build a cart on the web browser. Or a search engine of ill-repute that records your browsing history...

Those latter are the kind of cookies that the law-idiots think they are addressing, rightly or wrongly, whilst the temporary session cookies get lumped in with the permanent ones.

This legislation has been thrown about for several years and the dumbos still haven't got it right.

jecasc - the option I use is to set Firefox to block ALL cookies but only after asking me first. There is an option on the popup to "apply my choice to all cookies from this site." A bit tedious but if I know a site is going to be more useful with cookies then I can enable them at the outset or selectively as I go along.

You may be thinking of the sites that try to insist on cookies by saying "accept this cookie and we won't set any more" - eg G.

It will be interesting to see a test case on this. Several, in fact: UK site hosted in UK, UK site hosted abroad, international site hosted wherever. And, of course, US and EU sites selling to UK. That one will be fun.