Contrary to the belief of some, the EU E-Privacy Directive was never about stopping cookies. It was always about raising awareness of what they are, which ones are set and how they can be misused. It was, and still is, a cause of annoyance for many - especially as only four member states have currently adopted the provisions.
Whilst I don't think the implementation was correct, the underlying principle is sound - we should be ensuring users are aware of what data we're storing in their browser and how it's used. Most sites, in my opinion, don't go nearly far enough to achieve this, instead just scraping the minimum standard.
In this post, we'll be exploring what I think we're doing wrong, and what we should be aiming for.