Thanks to a new European Union privacy directive, UK legislation is coming into effect this month which may well fundamentally change the web experience for everyone - and runs the risk of handing the UK's digital businesses a huge competitive disadvantage.

The 'Cookie Directive', as it has become known is intended to increase consumer privacy by requiring websites to obtain informed consent from a visitor, before they can attempt to collect any information about them by placing a small file, known as a 'cookie' onto the device they are using the access the internet.

All very good I hear you say - more privacy is good, less power to big business.  Until you realise that the websites that people visit the most often contain hundreds of cookies, constantly placing and retireving data on your machine.

This means that, if the law is strictly applied, every time you visit a site, you will be faced with hundreds of pop-ups asking you to give your consent, and each one will have to tell you what data is being collected, and what will be done with it.

You can't just get rid of the cookies - they are central to the modern web experience, and particularly the enormous range of services that can only be delivered free of charge if they are allowed to advertise using cookies to track what visitors are interested in.

And yet, despite all the protestations of the UK Government and its privacy enforcer, the Information Commissioners Office, no one has come up with a practical alternative to the nightmare pop-up scenario.

Until now...

Along with our friends at Thin Martian, Governor Technology has been quietly working on an alternative approach for a few months, and we are pleased to now be able to announce the launch of our new website, the Cookie Crunch, about the solution we are working towards.

We think there is a practical solution that can suit everybody - both businesses who need data about visitors in order to deliver their services, and people who want to protect their privacy.

However, what is really needed is a collective approach to the solution, one that harnesses the power of the crowd as well as business. 

Through a new browser plug-in the crowd is helping us build a new database all about the cookies that are out there, who owns them and what they do.  Before too long we will be opening up the database so the world can see what our plug-in has found.

We are also building a new organisation, the Cookie Collective, which will help to interpret all the data we are gathering.  The Cookie Collective will build new tools to enable people to make informed choices about who they share their data with in the future. 

And we will do it in a way that will not only avoid destroying the web we already have, but actually improve the online experience through increased transparency, and ultimately trust between consumers and business.

So visit our new site, not just to find out more, but to get involved.