Ignoring this law means ignoring the privacy concerns of your users. If you're happy with that, you're part of the reason this law was introduced in the first place.

What privacy concerns? That they came to a site and stood around for 4 minutes and read some article?

Are my users concerned to go out too, and of their dress, and is that privacy also?

How would they like it if the first greeting in a shop was, Hello, we are watching you, we are here to serve you, and take as much money as we can from you.

Why do they not go after the people who actually do the tracking? Why do they not impose a legal obligation on google and ad agencies to not track, or on facebook or whatever. Why go after thousands of people. Not everyone is a programmer. Many website owners have no clue what a cookie is, which one is essential or otherwise, how to not store cookies, or delete them, etc.

The end effect is then that the web stops being free from all. The cooperation, with the resources to abide to such laws, once again take control. The man on the street can not any more simply get a template from some website and put some ads on it. He needs to pay some programmer which he probably can not afford.

What user has been hurt? What privacy has been infringed? What have we found out about anyone which was previously secret?

This is about control. Nothing else. As such, the people will do what they do best when met with ridiculous and far reaching laws, ignore them. Let them arrest us all!

> Why do they not impose a legal obligation on google and ad agencies to not track, or on facebook or whatever.

They do. As I understand it, this law applies just as well to the likes of Google, Yahoo and Facebook as it does to the sites that host their ads. There is some ambiguity over exactly who is responsible for gaining consent for 3rd party cookies — ICO have stated that this is a complicated area and more guidance may be forthcoming — but my approach is that I can't trust these third parties to cover my arse so I'll do it myself.