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Consent for cookies becomes mandatory
Everyone who operates his own website needs the prior consent of the visitors to the use of cookies. This was finally decided by the European Court of Justice on 01.10.2019. altea.me has been doing this right from the start. Because the hint used by many websites that you automatically agree with the cookies when using the website is ridiculous. How quickly this is overlooked or overlooked. And who reads the privacy statement by default?
So, like here on the screenshot it looks with altea.me, if you visit my WebSite the first time. The hint only disappears if you have either actively agreed or actively rejected the use of cookies. The privacy policy is also linked. It can also be accessed at any time in the header and footer.
The European Court of Justice judgement C-637/17 of 01.10.2019 finally ends the discussion and the different interpretation of the WebSite operators to the Cookie question. The Luxembourg judges thus make it clear that every cookie requires the prior consent of the website visitor. It does not matter whether the cookie stores personal data or not.
The ECJ judgement
Voluntary and active
For consent to be effective, it must be voluntary. And, it must be given actively. The information text for consent or refusal must be clear. In such a way that the visitor can see clearly what he/she agrees to. No check mark for consent may be selected in advance. Because then the consent would not have been given actively. The EU court therefore determines it exactly as I offer it here. And I wish myself when I visit other websites. 100% transparency in the sense of the visitors.
Effects on altea.me
There are none. Everything is already installed in such a way, as it prescribes the judgement. The pop-up window with the cookie hint is by the way the only pop-up on the whole site of altea.me. Because I don't have any annoying newsletter invitations or similar via pop-up window. I'm afraid myself every time I visit other websites and suddenly a big window pops up, which prevents me from reading on. That's why I find pop-ups to be very harassing and aggressive. And so I categorically reject them. Yes, I even leave websites that use it very quickly. Of course I don't use them.
Except for this one exception. With the legally prescribed active cookie, note of consent or rejection. I use a large window that almost covers half the site. Because it doesn't make sense if you can still read the posts without active consent or rejection. Only because the cookie hint functions as a lonely one-liner at the bottom as a footer. I would like you to consider and really decide whether you agree or disagree with altea.me cookies.
Data protection at altea.me
altea.me itself uses anonymous data – i.e. no personal data. These will be deleted automatically after 3 months at the latest, but can also be deleted at any time upon your request. Please use the contact form.
There are exceptions. These are the entries of unregistered visits here at altea.me. In addition to the text, the name and e-mail address are also required here. Both and the IP address are stored internally and are not displayed on the website. This is the only way I can prevent comments or reviews that do not conform to the law from being written anonymously.
Cookies at altea.me
The cookies used by altea.me are named and described in the data protection declaration.
Everyone knows the great sayings of the websites about cookies in the way “…serve to improve your user experience … bla bla bla”. What is this about? Are we all stupid? Why not plain text, transparency and information about the cookies used. With such a formulation I always get a bad feeling. Should something be concealed from me and presented positively in beautiful words? I seldom find answers in the data protection statements, which are usually difficult to understand.
Cookies usually collect data. This is the new digital currency. And everything ends up in huge data centers in the USA. So we are delighted with even better coordinated advertising. I don't use cookies like that. So e.g. no external statistics program, although I have still named it in the data security explanation. I do not sell or leave data to third parties. When using videos / Facebook and Twitter, however, I have no influence on it. Here the third party Google / Youtube etc. sets the cookies. Therefore also the references to the video data security – also above and below in the header and footer.
It is perhaps worth considering whether it is worse to get a Facebook, Twitter or YouTube cookie from your own direct visit there. Or from a website that uses these third parties. For me, it's not. Because if you use Facebook and Co anyway, you can do the same on other websites.
The Cookie Types
There are three types of cookies:
Required Cookies
- Analysis Cookies
- Advertising Cookies.
- Required Cookies
These are cookies that are absolutely necessary for the website to work. They are all anonymous and limited in time. A funny example of this is the cookie that manages your acceptance or rejection of cookies. Only if this cookie is set in the browser does the website know whether you have accepted or rejected the cookies. Without this cookie, you would always see the cookie pop-UP every time you visit a page, that would be very uncool. Also the cookie hint of altea.me uses such a cookie. The ruling of the EU court also excludes this type of cookie as an exception to active consent. At least if no other cookies are used. The cookie is usually deleted after 1-3 days and is anonymous. I hope it is understandable that this cookie is really used. 😉
Analysis Cookies – statistical data
This is probably the type of cookie that is meant when websites talk about “improving the user experience”. Analysis Cookies are important for any website administration. Only if I can e.g. examine which subpages are visited for a long time and which are not, can I detect my weaker articles and improve them.
There are two different types. First, the cookies from third-party analytics programs, such as Google Analytics. And cookies from statistical programs that work on your own website and that have no connection to the outside world. When analysing third-party cookies, website operators have no influence on how they are used. I could then only refer to the data protection declarations of the third party providers. My own statistics program is anonymous. There is no further data and it deletes the data after three months. So at altea.me no problem with this analysis cookies – from my point of view.
The transfer of data from third parties is not always transparent for users. Therefore I do not use Google Analytics. I have my own small statistics program that only runs on my server. This only runs anonymously according to the specifications of the EU-DSGVO (EU Data Protection Regulation). Unfortunately this is not possible with Facebook and Twitter.
An Anylyse Cookie is also set e.g. by the generally unknown German VG Wort. This is a kind of collecting society for authors who write articles or books. For digital and analogue types of text distribution. Similar to German GEMA for musicians, VG Wort distributes the so-called copy levy to the authors. The prerequisite is a minimum number of words and calls per year and article. Of course, VG Wort needs an anonymous cookie in order to measure the page views seriously. The payout for eligible articles is currently just over 20€ per year. So you won't get rich. But it helps to finance server costs.
Advertising Cookies
There's advertising on altea.me. The server, the premium plug-ins, some pictures – everything costs money. So I also try to finance a part through advertising. When I am on the move on other websites, advertising disturbs me under two circumstances. There is too much advertising and the advertising hinders me when using websites, reading articles for example. Therefore I tried to avoid this with altea.me. The number of ads is decently low in comparison. The positions do not hinder the reading flow. I don't work with advertising networks to have the most relevant ads on the topics. That's why altea.me only has ads from the Google Adsense and Amazon affiliate programs. I place banner advertising customers as static advertising only at relevant places.
Another personal note about advertising on altea.me. I bring a lot in here, a lot of time and money. I don't want to seduce you to buy something you don't want or need with the ads. But if you see something you want to buy anyway. Then click here with me on the link. It will not be more expensive for you and gives me a few cents cost share, thank you.
Cookie special features at altea.me
Since I embed videos from YouTube & Co you will also find the links to third party cookie references in my privacy policy. And, of course, instructions on how to delete cookies in different browsers.
Conclusion
Here I transparently list all types of cookies I use. And I'll explain to you why I do that. So you can make your decision and change it at any time. Because the cookie hint is fixed at the bottom of the footer. Therefore it is available on all subpages in the field of view and can be opened. Thus you can always change your decision at the beginning of the page visit. Some cookies are required for the functionality of the page. For example, if you reject a YouTube Video cookie, it is not possible to play the Video. Or the result will be unpredictable, but reading an article always works. 😉
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