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]

..

[RedBar]

That's an interesting post Mike:-)

[netmeg]

(envintus, ork ork)

[MrSavage]

I definitely feel a bit uneasy going into this. I never like leaving a door open for being non compliant with policy.

[EmptyRoom]

I still don't understand why they didn't send emails to everyone... I didn't get one and if it wasn't for this forum, I wouldn't even know about this. Maybe it's not as serious as we think after all?

I'm hesitant to implement the popup out of fear of "scaring" the visitors.

[vegasrick]

I'm having a coder create a module for me but geo-targeted ONLY for EU users. I have 85% traffic from outside the EU and see no need to implement this garbage to my entire audience. It won't be done by today, but I'm not really sweating this deadline since I was never notified by anyone, including an Adsense rep who I spoke with the other day, to get this done.

Funny thing, I saw two of the Adsense forum mods (who I believe are volunteers?) flat out refuse to implement anything out there than a link to a detailed "cookie policy" page in their footer (which is what I have done myself).

Here is another thing, I work with at least six networks. All of them are at the top of the food chain when it comes to ad network pecking order. None of them have contacted me either and I deal with a lot of my account managers on a weekly basis. I say this because many of them use Doubleclick and I also see them rotating in their own Adsense account from time to time.

[RedBar]

I'm hesitant to implement the popup out of fear of "scaring" the visitors.

I'm in Europe and no one gives a damn about it, so far this month my biggest site's Cookies PVs are less than 0.015%, whoopy doo!

[denisl]

Totally agree with RedBar - implemented the popup on smaller sites first, then my bigger ones about a week ago. I can see no difference in bounce rates or pages per visit.

In-fact, it's getting that you expect to see the popup, and a site's percieved trust level may be lower without it!

[screamingmidget]

I'm in Europe and no one gives a damn about it, so far this month my biggest site's Cookies PVs are less than 0.015%, whoopy doo!

What about the bounce rate, from people seeing it and leaving the site immediately?

Stats on who visits your privacy/cookie page is pretty meaningless as that's just people who decided to actively look at your privacy page, not what effect it has on people leaving the site.

[Ironside]

Am I correct in saying that the pop-up bar will only appear once in 24 hours of visiting a website? I've just implemented one on my website and it did appear for me a couple of hours ago, however it didn't appear for me again when I went back to the website. If this is the case, then that's good because people won't get annoyed by continuously having to click the button.

[RedBar]

Since this EU ruling was introduced I have never used a pop-up notification, I have incorporated a cookie link in my top navigation just like the UK government and various EU institutions have done, if it's good enough for them then it's good enough for me.

Google are deliberately obfuscating this issue it's as simple as that.

My sites to do not set cookies, only third party sites such as Google do, and this is explained in my cookie policy. If Google doesn't like that it's hard luck on them however I do know that one of their top AdSense publishers with over 15 billion hits per month has implemented precisely the same as me.

I very much doubt they would get it worng.

[screamingmidget]

RedBar, please could you share (pm if needed) the site in question so I can check it out.

[RedBar]

Ok, a couple of links sent.

[MrSavage]

I'm actually appalled at Google's handling of this. There are some of the most brilliant Adsense folks here, and I look at the scattered posts, confusion and nonsense around this and I'm left shaking my head. Fending for ourselves. That's how this really makes me feel. Nothing really clear, something new to worry about, and add that onto dropping earning and growing adblocker usage, and no real communication from the top. Sort of makes me feel like a lump of DS on the sidewalk to be honest.

[darthtoon]

You could look at it that Google are being deliberately vague - if pushed they would likely by the letter of the law have to advocate the highest level of caution, whereas as things stand they can at least say they're obeying the spirit of the law by notifying webmasters and leaving them to get on with it.

My guess (and hope!) is that anyone making even a token effort to comply will be OK, it's really in Google's best interests to be as laissez faire as they can get away with.

[Badger37]

@Ironside
Am I correct in saying that the pop-up bar will only appear once in 24 hours of visiting a website? ...

That'll depend on the script you've used and how you've implemented it!

Some scripts may behave like that, others will require you to click to confirm etc.
Some scripts will use a cookie^(sic) to store the 'confirmation' - the time this cookie will last is up to you when you install the script and also depends on how your visitors deal with cookies.

It poses an interesting question though. Google have asked AdSense publishers to comply but it's obvious many people don't understand what they're doing or how to do it.
Lots of AdSense users are good at producing useful/interesting content via a simple CMS type website and might not understand the ins and outs of this...

Has anyone heard/read anything else from Google on this after the initial email and blog I linked to in page 1 of this thread?

[Ironside]

Well mine is in place now and seems to be working perfectly okay. It looks as though somebody will only need to accept it once in a 24-hour period, even if they do come back to the website more than once. I can't see this causing any problems with anything on the site, even if they don't acknowledge the cookies they can still move around the website, only thing will happen is the buyer will stay at the bottom, but it doesn't obscure anything so I am quite happy. And since I'm using Joomla! it was just as simple as purchasing a €9 plug-in, installing it and we are away, took all of five minutes.

[ember]

All sites crashed and are still down so I won't get this code implemented in time. Will be interesting to see what happens tomorrow.

[netmeg]

On mine, as long as I click Dismiss, I don't see it again. I don't know how long that lasts (will have to ask envintus) but so far it's been 30 days.

I have asked over and over assorted Google reps WHY they are being so vague and WHY they are not emailing people. They won't even acknowledge the question, let alone answer it. I have to think it's deliberate, but I have no idea as to why. I guess we all just have to wait for the other shoe to drop.

[ken_b]

netmeg

On mine, as long as I click Dismiss,

Do you have a stat that shows how many people click the dismiss link?

I don't, but it would be interesting to know.

.

[RedBar]

I have to think it's deliberate, but I have no idea as to why.

Of course it's deliberate and I am also 99.999% sure as to why as well.

[ember]

I am also 99.999% sure as to why as well.

Why?

[netmeg]

Do you have a stat that shows how many people click the dismiss link?

No, I thought about coding or tagging something that would keep track of that, but never got around to it. I got so much data coming at me from different directions I'd probably never get around to looking at it anyway. But it wouldn't be terribly difficult to just stick a ?notice=dismiss or something and view it in Analytics.

[robzilla]

If you're using Analytics, I'd recommend setting up Event Tracking instead. I hate it when I close a cookie bar and I'm lead away from the page (even if it's towards the same page). I'm curious about the stats, so I might set this up myself.

[RedBar]

Why?

To discombobulate Brussels ... do I need to explain why?

[Whatagreatdayitis]

I'm using shareaholic for the cookie notification and limiting the pop up to Europe. Piece of cake. But does the notification have to appear on every page?

[ember]

But does the notification have to appear on every page?

Yes.

They are doing it this way to be as minimalist as possible because they are being forced by the EU to do it. So they directly notified the ones most obviously affected - EU based sites - and put a note on the blog so they can say that they are doing what the EU wants. They know that if they push the issue with the rest of us - particularly those in the U.S. - that it would be a financial hit if we all start scaring off visitors with a privacy notice. So when asked directly, they say nothing either way. They don't want to absolutely tell us we have to do it, and they don't want to say we don't have to do it.

I doubt anything will come of this. At least now right now.

Of course, I could be wrong.

[MrSavage]

If anyone is needing a solution, check page 7 of this monster thread. Therein lies a solution. Nifty. Took my thick skull a few tried to do this, but if I can do it, anyone can. I put this into an old school designed site, 20 or so pages. Took about 10 minutes of my time. Cheers to that guy, netmeg's "guy" as it were. If it's good enough for netmeg, then it's good enough for me! Sharaholic was a joke imo with having to jump through so many hoops and putting their code all over my site. Screw that.

[vivalasvegas]

If anyone is needing a solution, check page 7 of this monster thread. Therein lies a solution. Nifty. Took my thick skull a few tried to do this, but if I can do it, anyone can. I put this into an old school designed site, 20 or so pages. Took about 10 minutes of my time. Cheers to that guy, netmeg's "guy" as it were. If it's good enough for netmeg, then it's good enough for me! Sharaholic was a joke imo with having to jump through so many hoops and putting their code all over my site. Screw that.

Yes, thanks to Envintus and Netmeg I was able to implement this in minutes too. Not sure I'll keep it, will see what happens and how or if this will somehow be enforced

[dolcevita]

I was looking around for something what is simple for implementation and in the same time have enough options for cookiebar changing things.

And finally i found it primebox.co.uk and under their projects is jquery-cookiebar. Easy to install (only 2 files) with a lot options to modify it the way how it looks and how it works. Before i've decided to use jquery-cookiebar from primebox i got a lot trouble with Silktide cookiebar. It does not works very well on Mobile devices because of render issue.

I have also place Sharaholic on one of my domains and it is just one line javascript code. I can recommend it if you would like simple copy/paste options without think a lot about it but it is limited in the way of changing look and how it works. From other side you got easy way to install and 'only to EU visitors' options what is more than appreciate.