The cookie law is in no way dead, the ICO is just doing what every other 'compliant' site has always done.
New policy for the ICO site:
> Cookies set on arrival to the site.
New cookies banner displayed. Banner explains that the website uses cookies and that cookies have been set, tells users they can change their cookie settings (via a new cookies page), or continue to use the site.
I always thought the "set first and offer the user to kindly f' off if they don't like it" method was not in the spirit of the law, but that is the one that sites have adopted. There was never any realistic possibility of prosecution in that scenario, so i see this move as just the ICO accepting reality.
Rather than what Silktide are saying, this change just seems to be bringing their own website into line with their last-minute clarification (or rather u-turn) on implicit consent.
The ICO spent a year banging on about how you need explicit consent, and lots of people ran around implementing various solutions that make people click buttons and are generally incredibly annoying. Then, about 12 hours before the law came into effect, the ICO said "Actually, you know what? Implicit consent is fine."
On the off-chance anyone is still interested in this sort of thing, I wrote a small implicit consent script after the ICO clarified their position: http://radiac.net/projects/cookieuse/
New policy for the ICO site:
> Cookies set on arrival to the site. New cookies banner displayed. Banner explains that the website uses cookies and that cookies have been set, tells users they can change their cookie settings (via a new cookies page), or continue to use the site.
I always thought the "set first and offer the user to kindly f' off if they don't like it" method was not in the spirit of the law, but that is the one that sites have adopted. There was never any realistic possibility of prosecution in that scenario, so i see this move as just the ICO accepting reality.