I have heard talks from one of the politician that wrote the directive , and they did not view "continue browsing" as a valid method. They are however only the writers of the directive, and they used the concept of "consent" as it was stated in a different directive. The interpretation of that directive was radically changed by most of the larger corporations as a direct reaction of the cookie law, and none has yet to challenge it.
Tha politician was not very happy about the company lawyers change in complying with the "explicit informed consent" requirement, as that is the strongest from of consent that EU directives uses, and it basically is a ticking time bomb until someone abuses this new interpretation. "continued browsing of this website mean that you give a explicit informed consent that you agree to buy our service" is a major concern that I got, but maybe we will need such thing before it get thrown to the courts.