Further information on user consent on websites

The European Commission intends to force Internet social networks to seek consent from users every time they log on to websites.

In a speech about online privacy, the Commissioner for justice and fundamental rights, Viviane Reding indicated firmly that she would ask all websites, including social networking sites like Facebook, to seek explicit consent from their European users before preserving their IP addresses.

The commissioner said that the reforms would seek to unify the data protection regimes across the EU as currently each member state applies varying rules to data protection. In practice this might entail 'consent boxes' being used every time an IP address of individual users was transferred to a web site offering goods and services.