Cookie compliance management

Apparatus, comprising:

• a processor;
• computer memory holding computer program instructions executed by the processor to manage cookie compliance for an application in an enterprise computer environment, the computer program instructions including program code configured to:
• responsive to receipt of an operation associated with the application, receive a set of one or more cookies discovered to have been set by the application;
• analyze a cookie in the set to compute a set of one or more descriptive attributes required to evaluate the cookie according to a policy;
• receive a data set characterizing the cookie, the data set including the set of one or more descriptive attributes;
• and
• evaluate one or more policy rules and the data set to make a determination whether setting of the cookie by the application is compliant with the policy.

A computer program product in a non-transitory computer readable medium for use in a data processing system to manage cookie compliance for an application in an enterprise computer environment, the computer program product holding computer program instructions that, when executed by the data processing system, are configured to:

• responsive to receipt of an operation associated with the application, receive a set of one or more cookies discovered to have been set by the application;
• analyze a cookie in the set to compute a set of one or more descriptive attributes required to evaluate the cookie according to a policy;
• receive a data set characterizing the cookie, the data set including the set of one or more descriptive attributes;
• and
• evaluate one or more policy rules and the data set to make a determination whether setting of the cookie by the application is compliant with the policy.

A cookie compliance management system, comprising:

• a workflow engine configured to receive a request to initiate an evaluation of an application for cookie compliance;
• a cookie discovery engine configured to receive a request to initiate cookie discovery against the application, the request to initiate being invoked by the workflow engine in response to receipt of the request;
• a cookie characterization engine configured to receive a set of base attributes associated with a cookie discovered by the cookie discovery engine, the cookie characterization engine being further configured to compute a set of one or more descriptive attributes, the descriptive attributes being required to evaluate the cookie according to a policy;
• a cookie policy engine configured to receive one or more policy rules and the set of descriptive attributes and, in response, to determine whether the cookie is compliant with the policy;
• and
• a cookie registry to store the cookie, the set of base attributes, the set of descriptive attributes, and a compliance determination;
• wherein the engines are configured to execute in an automated manner as software in one or more hardware processors.