From what we've read, this new directive includes a caveat exempting cookies that are "strictly necessary for the legitimate purpose of enabling the use of a specific service explicitly requested" by the user, such as our use of cookies to keep track of items each buyer has added to their online shopping cart, or your login session to use E-junkie Admin and Forum. In such cases, the user's consent to set a cookie is implicit in their use of a function that needs to set a cookie in order to function at all.
However, professional legal interpretations are harder to come by concerning whether or how this may apply to affiliate referral-tracking cookies, especially considering there's nothing about such cookies that reference or contain information about the individual user, neither personally nor anonymously but uniquely, in whose browser such cookies are set. Moreover, how might this directive affect EU-based sellers' use of E-junkie, which itself is not based within the EU? Ultimately, it may come down to a matter of how each EU member nation chooses to implement the rather vaguely-worded directive, since those will determine actual enforcement of these new guidelines.
We'll keep looking for information to help clarify this matter, but we'd suggest bringing it up with your own legal counsel if you have concerns about how or whether it may apply to you. I've written an email requesting information to the Pinsent Masons firm in the UK which appears to be foremost in publishing public information about the matter, e.g.:
http://out-law.com/page-5486
