Google AdSense and Cookies (Cookie Law) email

EU Cookies

[Badger37]

Hi all,
I've just received an email from Google regarding AdSense and Cookies.
Cookie Law came in a couple of years ago and seems mostly to be a waste or time and just another irritation to website visitors. I was hoping that it would quietly go away!

The email from Google reads as if you now have to implement a 'consent mechanism' if you have already - are other people receiving these emails and what are peoples views (especially if they are in the UK like me).

I've put the Google email text below.
Thanks.



Google Ads Policy Team
Dear Publisher,

We want to let you know about a new policy about obtaining EU end-users’ consent that reflects regulatory and best practice guidance. It clarifies your duty to obtain end-user consent when you use products like Google AdSense, DoubleClick for Publishers and DoubleClick Ad Exchange.

Please review our new EU user consent policy as soon as possible. This requires that you obtain EU end users’ consent to the storing and accessing of cookies and other information, and to the data collection, sharing and usage that takes place when you use Google products. It does not affect any provisions on data ownership in your contract.

Please ensure that you comply with this policy as soon as possible, and not later than 30 September 2015.

If your site or app does not have a compliant consent mechanism, you should implement one now. To make this process easier for you, we have compiled some helpful resources at cookiechoices.org.

This policy change is being made in response to best practice and regulatory requirements issued by the European data protection authorities. These requirements are reflected in changes that have been recently made on Google’s own websites.
Thank you in advance for your understanding and cooperation.
Regards,
The Google Policy Team

[Leosghost]

I said "may"..I did not say "will"..post #4766398

But as you ( in post #4766494 )are saying what Google "will" ( they'll being a contraction of "they will" ) do..

However he/she is wrong to suggest they'll close your account for it. They'll treat it like other forms of non-compliance, issue you a warning and give you a short time to correct it.

So, you have inside information from Google ? presumably if anyone follows your advice, you may offer to compensate those whose accounts may get closed without notice from Google ? That may set some concerned minds to rest..

All depends how lucky one feels I suppose..If I had a six figure per month income from adsense, I for one though, would not bet my account on what any non official Google spokesperson in a web forum, said "they'll" ( when referring to Google ) do..

YMMV ;)

[netmeg]

I have NEVER been contracted by them over this issue and I don't know any U.S. publishers who have. Google can't simply attack their a publishers because they didn't do something that they have absolutely no knowledge of.

They did not contact me, but I asked my rep and was told that the requirement did apply to me if I had even one EU visitor, and I'm located in the US *plus* 99% of my sites are targeted specifically and only to US States. But I still have to comply, because I occasionally get an EU visitor.

I don't think Google likely WILL terminate an account before sending a notice, but they certainly *could* do it. If they wanted to. Pretty sure it's in the TOS that they can terminate for any or no reason. And I suspect if a publisher had a few other borderline issues, this could be the one to push them over the edge.

(P.S. They've terminated other six figure AdSense accounts. Nobody is ever 100% safe, and everybody can be replaced. If you're making that much money, you probably have a rep (whether or not you know it) and you should contact them.)

[Ebuzz]

I've implemented this cookie notice on most of my sites by now and will complete the implementation on all sites by end September.

I just wonder if the consent should be "Implied" or "explicit" - I've chosen "Implied" for all instances. Once they click "Agree" to the notice, the banner disappears for good, and I assume this is it?

Also, is it ok to not have the banner as a sticky, or must it always be a sticky? If the banner is in the footer, it will always be a sticky (until the visitor "agrees"), but if it's in the header, not necessarily.

[netmeg]

I just wonder if the consent should be "Implied" or "explicit" - I've chosen "Implied" for all instances. Once they click "Agree" to the notice, the banner disappears for good, and I assume this is it?

Unless they use another device or browser, I think so.

I don't think it has to be sticky, though almost all the ones I've are sticky.

[ember]

I'm dealing with a lot of old html pages, so if I miss a few and some European stumbles upon one and does not see the notice and I get a warning from Adsense, I am hoping that the warning will specify what the page is that is missing the notice. Otherwise, I am probably toast.

[RedBar]

The ironic thing is that even though I've complied with this thing forever and a day, earnings are so low that I'll most probably be removing all ads on, wait for it, 30th September 2015 ... Arghhh, no chance to see if Google will throw me out:-)

[azlinda]

I have the notice on my WordPress site, but I don't intend to put it on my static site. If Google wants me gone....good. I don't have much use for them anymore.

[Multiverse]

Tough decision. On the one hand, you don't want to annoy your users. On the other hand, you don't want to annoy Google. I guess every webmaster has to make their own decision, what is more important.

My personal approach is like this: I went to the 11 most popular competitors in my industry and made a statistic, how they deal with this. 10 of them are bigger then me, so they have more resources to spend on tackling this issue. Here is the result:

Of the 10 who are bigger then me, 9 use Adsense on their site. 8 of them don't have any type of cookie complience. One of them shows a cookie consent message if you visit their site from a European IP. The message is very much invisible though. They have a huge, complex page and the cookie consent appears sticky on the bottom of the page. After a short moment, the message fades away. So in a practical sense, they don't really have a cookie consent message. Because users will not see it.

The two competitors who don't use Adsense also don't have a cookie complience.

So at the moment, I would be the only one to annoy his users with this.

Will be interesting, if this statistic changes over time.

Maybe, if over 90% of all webmasters keep refusing to use this popup stuff, it might just fade away and be this "crazy idea in 2015" nobody remembers in a few years.

[Sponge_Bob]

does anybody know good script/plugin for wordpress to show this banner cookie only to EU users ?
THanks

[netmeg]

There's a couple of them; go to the WordPress plugin repository and search. Also the Shareaholic social buttons have an option for it too.

[Broadway]

I just read through this entire thread. I'm under the impression that there isn't one US based publisher with a USA-centric website that reported receiving the emailed notice. I'm tempted to simply go with a safety-in-numbers stance.

[Broadway]

The Adsense program has always been geared toward simplicity so even small, technically-unsophisticated publishers could be included.

I would think that for many many sites, the only cookies being used are GA and Adsense. I would imagine that Google will ultimately come up with a feature which handles this issue for these types of participants. If not, then possibly Google is finally tired of dealing with the "publisher's network" and is ready to phase it out.

Additionally, since EU law has no recourse for punishing me as a publisher here in the USA, by just contacting European-based publishers Google is basically forcing EU Adsense participants to comply with a law they were already legally required to comply with.

That's entirely different than forcing this issue on (USA) publishers who otherwise wouldn't have to deal with it.

I'm not saying that they won't ultimately formally announce this policy change to USA-based publishers, but more likely they are just rocking the EU boat, seeing what comes of it, and then coming up with their program solutions.

After all, the giant issue here isn't just placing a banner. The money issue is placing the banner on pages before any cookies are set, as evidently at least some countries technically require (as in a landing page with zero advertising). No one, not the publisher or Google can afford that. That is the issue they are trying to bring attention to and clear a way past.

[netmeg]

It *is* formally announced.

[adsense.blogspot.com...]

[Broadway]

It's still hard to take this "announcement" seriously when essentially none of the emails stating this "urgent" change went to USA websites. Plus the fact that essentially none of the solutions presented in this thread, or on cookiechoices.org, actually "comply with the EU user consent policy."

[Multiverse]

Broadway, some thoughts about your post:

...since EU law has no recourse for punishing me as a publisher here in the USA...

There is no such thing as "EU law". Every country here has it's own law. The european commission has issued a guideline that individual countries in the EU should turn into national laws. The guideline is here:

[ec.europa.eu...]

Some countries have changed their laws in reaction to this guideline. Some have not. Every country handles this issue differently.

Google is basically forcing EU Adsense participants to comply with a law they were already legally required to comply with.

That's questionable and discussed lively here in the EU. From what I read around the net, the general census seems to be that in most countries in the EU you do not have to annoy the visitors with popups. At the moment, I'm not aware of any big european companies who do this popup thing. And they have all these lawyers with time to write endless EULAs and TOS and stuff... if it was local law - why wouldn't they obey it? From what I see, only some US companies do the cookie-popup-dance in europe.

[Broadway]

Multiverse,
As a US publisher, I readily stand corrected. But the point is the same. No recourse for reining in non-compliant US publishers.
And your second point, non-compliance in the EU is rampant. So, as a US publisher who was not notified by email, nor even the "notifications" area of the Adsense console, why would I jump through hoops to comply with a policy probably the vast majority of US Adsense publishers are totally unaware.

What US publishers with USA-centric websites that post on this form took the time to comply with this issue? (Please sing out.)

[ken_b]

What US publishers with USA-centric websites that post on this form took the time to comply with this issue?

I did, and I get very few EU visitors. Pretty sure reading back through this thread and others on the issue here you'll see I'm not alone.

Not that hard to comply with, at least to the extent G seems to be requiring.

Also forget that this is an EU issue. For AdSense publishers it's a Google AdSense issue.

Are you really willing to put your AdSense account at risk over this?

[ember]

What US publishers with USA-centric websites that post on this form took the time to comply with this issue?

I am complying, although not happily and maybe not in time. I agree that Google has officially announced this via their blog but I also find it very odd that no email was sent to U.S. publishers. That tells me that they want EU publishers to comply but don't care that much if U.S. publishers do or don't.

[netmeg]

What US publishers with USA-centric websites that post on this form took the time to comply with this issue?

I've got 40 sites converted so far. Some of them I'm not going to bother with.

People keep talking about not getting an email - how often do we get unsolicited emails from AdSense anyway? Not that often that I remember. I mostly only get them because I subscribe to the blog updates.

[ember]

I just think the oddity is that some people got emails and others did not. If this privacy notice applies to everyone who gets EU traffic - which could be any site across the globe - then why not send the email to everyone or at least put a notice in everyone's account?

[Leosghost]

Because that would cost Google more ( even Google pays the bandwidth for an email to every adsense publisher worldwide, and Google is all about "the bottom line" ) than putting it on a blog page, notifying a few , and watching others talk about it so getting the word out..They do not send individual emails to all of us every time they adjust or tweak their TOS..

They tell us ( in their TOS ) that "it is our responsibility to keep up to date with their TOS"..

[jpch]

What US publishers with USA-centric websites that post on this form took the time to comply with this issue?

I have as well even though my EU visitors are less than 10% of my traffic. I am not bothering with the "Prior Consent" aspect of the issue until AdSense notifies me directly that I have to. Until then EU visitors only will see a drop down notice about the cookies.

[Andem]

A shame that UK internal politics ( and your UKIP aligned position ) makes up 50% of what would otherwise be your helpful posts.

Doesn't sound UKIP to me. The strive for freedom and liberty are beyond party politics.

Who wants their laws created by the likes of Marine Lepen and her Front National when she manages to become the French president?

Yeah that's what I thought.

Hope you all find this helpful. Thanks!

I do and it's saved me some time creating my own JavaScript. PM me your PayPal address so I can buy you a beer!

[EditorialGuy]

Because that would cost Google more ( even Google pays the bandwidth for an email to every adsense publisher worldwide, and Google is all about "the bottom line" )

It would be easy enough for them to send a notification message via the AdSense publisher account tools.

As for "the bottom line," encouraging compliance is in Google's best interests. Dumping publishers is not, since fewer publishers = fewer ads served.

[Leosghost]

You do realise that UKIP and Marine LePen's FN were / are political allies ?

My point was that anti EU rants do not help, and are not relevant to non EU based webmasters to deal with what Google ( not the EU ) imposes on them if they are not EU based ..

What you "thought"..was entirely wrong..

Please do not make public assumptions / insinuations about my politics nor my about my thoughts / positions on freedom and liberty..

It would be easy enough for them to send a notification message via the AdSense publisher account tools.

Indeed it would, but they didn't..

Dumping publishers is not, since fewer publishers = fewer ads served.

With this..Google are more interested in the possibility of fooling the EU authorities with the "look at what we are doing" re compliance with EU laws" in the hope that the EU will back off on other problems that Google is having with them with regards to privacy, image scraping,and favouring their own properties..

Sacrificing some revenue ( fewer publishers does not mean fewer ads served, the "slack" would be taken up by others, if that was not the case Google would never shut down accounts of publishers for any TOS infringements as they would want the maximum number of publishers to serve the maximum number of ads , and allow Google to make the maximum revenue )..sacrificing some publishers for PR points would not make Google blink ..we can and will all be thrown under the bus anytime it suits Google, for whatever reason..

[Swanny007]

I did not get a message in my AdSense account nor an e-mail. I'm in Canada and my site is hosted in the US. I don't plan on doing anything about this other than following this thread and seeing what happens. EU traffic is probably 5% or less than the total traffic I get so I'm not going to lose any sleep over this yet.

I suspect worst case all AdSense will do is disable ad serving on your sites to EU visitors. I can't see them disabling your account or even ad serving to any particular website due to non-compliance. But hey, I'm not a lawyer. We'll see what happens in about 2 weeks.

[Leosghost]

Most of the French users that I see actually "surfing" in front of me, just click on "OK" and breeze right on through into the sites ( most French sites that I see do use cookie consent notifications ), the majority who do have the equivalent of "read more" or "OK" or "accept"..

"Dismiss" is a word I'd not use, it is saying "go away" to the "cookie notification"..it is not an "acceptance" or an "I'm OK with this" word..and "OK" is about as internationally known and understood, as it can get, along with Coke and the Mickey D arches..

The only time I've ever seen anyone here baulk at a cookie notice was one that was a quite vivid yellow div..with black lettering ( "stinging dangerous insect warning colours", which we have evolved "avoid" "reflexes" to )..that colour combo raised a "whoa lah".."quoi".."non"..and they "bounced" without reading the notice or the site..

Otherwise everyone here is pretty well used to the previous EU cookie notifications by now ( I suspect the same is true of other EU countries ) and I really don't think that ( providing you don't trigger the "dangerous stinging insect response" with your colours ) that it will put anything other than a tiny percentage of people off clicking "OK" and entering anyones's site..

My advice..don't risk your adsense account..add the cookie notice and don't get caught up, and maybe become a casualty in the fight between Google and the EU..

[denisl]

As Leosghost says, we are getting used to seeing these cookie notices and doubt many people will be spooked by them. As far as I know, all the ones I have seen have really been implied consent - you could carry on using the site without clicking the "I've got it" button, and some cases they fade away on their own.

I also notice that the BBC have not done anything yet, and they carry Adsense ads - they simply have a link to cookie information in their footer - and that page only gives general information about cookies.

[Multiverse]

denisl: Did you check with a European IP? Because with a European IP, I see a cookie message on top of the page on the BBC websites. With IPs from non-EU countries, I do not see it.

[Leosghost]

BBC.com does have a cookie notice on landing, ( accessing from France ) but as it is javascript driven , if you have javascript off you won't see it..

Of course with javascript set to "off" you won't see the adsense it runs either..

I didn't test again using an outside of EU IP, but based on what you saw Multiverse, it is GEO sniffing, before serving the notice..