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Sunday 20 July 2014

Is the EU Cookie Law Still a Thing?

Is the EU Cookie Law Still a Thing? Believe it or not, yes it is

Believe it or not, yes it is.

And in case you're still thinking "my site is okay, because I don't use cookies", be aware that Google Analytics cookies are covered by the EU Cookie law and so legally, since they are not essential for the functionality of your site, you have a responsibility to tell people that you are using them and give visitors the option to leave your site before a cookie is issued.

I'm not aware of anyone having been prosecuted for contraventions of the cookie law, as yet, but of course that doesn't mean it will never happen.

As you can imagine, the likely recipients of prosecution would probably be companies who are deliberately using cookies in a dishonest way in order to gather information about users that those users would not have volunteered.

One can only assume that the likely course of action in the case of an average website - ie. one that uses cookies in a harmless but non-compliant way - would be a warning to the website owners that they must become compliant immediately or face prosecution.

But of course, a contravention is a contravention and I imagine the authorities have to take it seriously when any complaint is levelled against a company that is not compliant.

Quick and easy options to make the whole thing go away include the free Cookie Control code or Google's own Cookie Choices code. Either can probably be configured and set up on your site in under half an hour.

Tuesday 15 July 2014

Getting rid of Wordpress spam comments

Getting rid of Wordpress spam comments

To get rid of comments, go to the Comments page here: yourdomain.com/wp-admin/edit-comments.php

And for each bit of spam, check the box next to it down the left-hand side.

Getting rid of Wordpress spam comments

Then select Mark as Spam from the Bulk Actions menu.

Then just continue with the next page of Comments and repeat.

The recognised way to stop comment spam is to use Akismet, which is one of only two plugins that comes pre-installed with Wordpress. However, while effective, that requires an annual subscription.

Recently, I've found considerable success using a plug-in called Anti-Spam for Wordpress, which is free. It's relatively low-tech and in due course, if it becomes popular enough, spammers will undoubtedly start to find a way around it,but for now it seems to be working very well on 100% of the sites on which I've tested it.


Monday 14 July 2014

Summer Holiday Closures

inframes.com ltd summer holiday closures
Friday July 18th Closed
Friday August 15th Closed
Monday August 18th Closed
Friday August 22nd Closed
Monday August 25th Closed (Bank Holiday)
Tuesday August 26th Closed
Monday September 1st Closed
Tuesday September 2nd Closed
Wednesday September 3rd Closed

Email will be monitored as usual throughout the holidays for web hosting tech support queries.