Take Action Before March 1st! Adapting to Google Consent Mode v2

Firstly, it's been a while! We’ve been insanely busy at Incendium and I’m rubbish at keeping up with posting at the best of times, so apologies!

Now…. Consent Mode V2. I feel compelled to write a post on this because I’ve seen a lot of inaccurate content on it, and have been asked by a lot of people what the hell it means.

10 Second Summary

1. This is important for all websites. It definitely affects you!
2. If you aren’t running Consent Mode V2 past March 1st, you won’t be able to use Google Ads for retargeting or GA4 tracking
3. You need to check if your Consent Management Platform (the cookie popup thingy) is Consent Mode V2 compliant
4. If you run your own, pass instructions to your team: https://developers.google.com/tag-platform/security/guides/consent?consentmode=advanced 
5. If you need help navigating this mess, DM me!

If You’re Outside The EU, It Still Impacts You

Just because it is related to the EU/UK, it doesn't mean it doesn’t apply to your website. Or as one post suggested, if you block EU traffic that doesn’t fix things either. For better or worse, the reality is that it affects every website. If you block EU traffic, that doesn’t mean a citizen from an EU country isn’t going to visit your site from a VPN or be physically located in a non-EU country. All sites need to take notice and act on this - or take the risk of non-compliance. 

Can You Ignore The Regulators? What’s The Real Risk?

Is there a risk? Well, at first people laughed at the GDPR. It didn’t seem particularly well thought out seeing as it “banned cookies”, and yet required cookies to save consent preferences. But a few years on, there have been clarifications and a number of high profile court cases. Several countries in the EU completely banned Google Analytics! France's data protection authority fined Google almost $60m and it’s far from the only example; enforcement definitely happens and can be quite severe. 

So, unfortunately yes it almost certainly applies to your site. And yes it’s very frustrating and is going to potentially mark further data loss. But there’s no avoiding it. 

What is Consent Mode V2?

Given Google’s hefty fines and the fact that it is clearly in the crosshairs of the regulators, Google is now driving privacy initiatives. Consent Mode V2 is a framework designed to adjust how Google's web tools collect and process data based on the consent given by users. This approach aims to support businesses in complying with the EU's General Data Protection Regulation and other global privacy regulations, by ensuring that user consent is respected across Google's suite of analytics and advertising services.

Consent Mode v2 is, in its essence, a set of Google-provided APIs that enable websites to adjust how Google's services operate based on the consent status of users. Specifically, it involves implementing JavaScript code snippets on your website that interact with Google's services, such as Google Analytics and Google Ads. These APIs allow for the dynamic handling of user consent signals for cookies, data collection and data sharing.

Taking Action:

If you use a Consent Management Platform (CMP) or any form of user consent interface, ensure it's configured to work seamlessly with Consent Mode v2. This might involve technical adjustments or updates. 

If you run your own implementation, get your team to apply the latest updates. Guidance can be found here: 

https://developers.google.com/tag-platform/security/guides/consent?consentmode=advanced 

Hopefully that's the last big privacy update for a while.... but somehow I doubt it. I'm sure Apple will be rolling out new challenges soon enough!