What does EU GDPR means for Adsense?

Question about GDPR and Adsense.

[hwint]

Question: What does EU GDPR means for Adsense?

Most of the Adsense income is from interest based ads. Will this be affected by the EU GDPR?
I'm concerned because today with the latest update for my Android Phone, I got asked for permission related to interest based ads. (Maybe it is because I did disable it before. This is to see the normal ads on my pages with Adsense. But I'm still concerned.)

[MayankParmar]

@Cralamarre I use Sucuri for caching.

I just tried [cookieconsent.insites.com...] and it looks good.

[Cralamarre]

@MayankParmar I'll probably end up using that one as well. If I can't get the Geo-targeting to work, I'll just show the banner to everyone. I see it myself on lots of sites even though I'm not in the EU.

[Cralamarre]

For anyone who's been showing a cookie consent banner not only to visitors in the EU but also in the US and elsewhere, have you noticed any impact on AdSense revenue? I can't help but think that the banner would distract visitors from the ads, which is why I'm asking if anyone has noticed a drop in revenue since displaying the banner.

I know the banner is mandatory for EU users, but has it impacted revenue outside of the EU?

[MayankParmar]

The banner could also result in accidental clicks?

[Cralamarre]

Depending on the banner and ad placements, I suppose it could. But then again, I find that even scrolling through pages on a mobile device, especially on my iPad, often results in accidental clicks. On an iPad or other tablet, ads along the right of a page are smack in the spot where I naturally press to scroll. But anyway, that's a different issue. :)

But yes, I can see the banner resulting in some accidental clicks. What I'm more concerned about, though, is that showing the banner to visitors in the US, which make up most of my traffic, will distract those visitors from my ads and result in a drop in earnings.

[Cralamarre]

AdSense has been doing extremely well for me over the past couple of days. Yesterday's earnings were up 32% over the previous week, and today is looking just as good. It's sad to think that this may come to a sudden end on May 25th.

[bgweb]

@Cralamarre the advertising bucks go where the eyeballs go. That won't change next week. See it is an opportunity rather than a threat.

[Cralamarre]

@bgweb I just meant that I won't be able to show personalized ads to visitors in the EU as of May 25th. But, they make up very little of my traffic anyway. Not sure why that is, really, but in this case it's probably a good thing.

[Travis]

It's sad to think that this may come to a sudden end on May 25th.

Or we may realized that contextual ads are in fact better than interest-based ads :) This can be discussed here : [webmasterworld.com...]

[Cralamarre]

Has anyone else seen the new Privacy Settings pop-up in Chrome? I did a search for something and a box popped up asking me to set my privacy settings. If you dig through it, there's an option to turn off personalized ads in Chrome. First time I've seen it. I'm in Canada, not the EU.

[MayankParmar]

Lol just opened Analytics on desktop and my eye's paining because of the bright yellow banner asking to update GDPR settings. Meanwhile nothing on AdSense.

My AdX partner told me that they have a meeting with Google on Friday for GDPR.

[No5needinput]

@Cralamarre I'm in Montreal Canada and getting the security settings popup as well

[Travis]

My AdX partner told me that they have a meeting with Google on Friday for GDPR.

So just one week before the dead line. Sounds so professional :) ... I said it plenty of times, the GDPR was decided in 2012, the final text set in 2016, so this left plenty of time to prepare it. That small publishers were not aware, this is understandable, but business directly concerned, like ad networks, this is not understandable.

[Cralamarre]

I'm in Montreal Canada and getting the security settings popup as well

Looks like Google may be doing more behind the scenes with this privacy issue than we're being led to believe.

[jpch]

If someone already mentioned the solution from Quantcast my apologies. It's Free and has a Geolocation feature. I think it's worthwhile to see if this might not be a solution for many publishers.

[quantcast.com...]

[RainMeetsSun]

The "Cookie Consent" banner (at [cookieconsent.insites.com...] ) is relatively simple to implement but I am not sure if it qualifies for GDPR compliance or with revised Adsense / Analytics policy.

The Quantcast solution looks interesting too (at [quantcast.com...] ) but perhaps overly complex, and the "Consent Scope" section reads like gibberish to me.

I spoke with a few other people impacted by GDPR today and the consensus was that because GDPR applies to all EU citizens, it also applies to them if they travel abroad and outside of the EU region, thus the implication is to show the annoying cookie / privacy banner to everyone because technically some EU citizen could be in Texas on a vacation or work visa, etc. An interesting consideration.

It's hard to imagine the privacy / cookie banners not impacting earnings, either way.

Decisions decisions....

[keyplyr]

The "Cookie Consent" banner (at [cookieconsent.insites.com...] ) is relatively simple to implement but I am not sure if it qualifies for GDPR compliance or with revised Adsense / Analytics policy.

So explain everything in your Privacy Policy and edit your cookie notice to read:

By using this site you agree to our Privacy Policy [I Agree]

...and link to your Privacy Policy.

[NickMNS]

@RainMeetsSun I believe that is actually the opposite:

it also applies to them if they travel abroad and outside of the EU region

It applies to anyone in EU territory, so if an American goes to Germany they are covered by GDPR, where as if a German goes to the US while in the US they are not covered. This of course opens a big loophole, how can one reliably know the physical location of a user without tracking their geo-location, but one cannot track geo-location without consent.

[Cralamarre]

one cannot track geo-location without consent.

Does this mean that Google will no longer be able to show local results in the SERPs unless they're given consent by the user to access their location?

[ember]

Just saw the Chrome privacy pop up, too. After a lot of clicking, it lets you opt out of personalized ads.

[Cralamarre]

Hopefully most people will just click "No thanks" and close the pop up.

[vegasrick]

The option has been out there for days now, has anyone even tested the option to provide EU users with only non-personalized ads to at least test revenue loss between personalized vs. non-personalized - or is everyone just waiting until the last minute?

My EU revenue is low in the overall scheme of things, so I may not notice, but someone else might.

[ember]

I turned off personalized ads for EU people several days ago and have noticed nothing different, but I don't get a lot of EU visitors.

[Travis]

The option has been out there for days now, has anyone even tested the option to provide EU users with only non-personalized ads to at least test revenue loss between personalized vs. non-personalized - or is everyone just waiting until the last minute?

You can set the option anytime you want, Adsense said that it will apply only starting on May 25th

[edited by: Travis at 6:12 am (utc) on May 17, 2018]

[keyplyr]

You mean May 25?

[Travis]

You mean May 25?

Yes, I fixed it.

[Pistoche]

When I choose the non-personalized ads option for EU, I get a message at the bottom stating: "Google will show only non-personalized ads to users in the EEA. You are required to obtain your users' consent to the use of cookies for this purpose, where applicable. For more information about his policy, see the Google EU User Consent Policy."

What is the point of switching to non-personalized ads if you are still required to get consent? Am I missing/misinterpreting something here? Thanks in advance.

[MayankParmar]

"This site uses cookies. By using this site you agree to our Privacy Policy. [I Agree] button."

This standard cookie popup should be enough if personalized ads are turned off.

[Pistoche]

Thanks for the quick reply, what additional things do you need if you keep personalized ads turned on?

[ChanandlerBong]

I'm not concerned about having to go non-personalised for the EU. The pool of advertisers ain't going nowhere, the slices of pie may get divvied out a little differently but if personalised loses out in any big way, that slack will get taken up by non-personalised.

I'll watch my figures for EU countries (which, in itself, is about 15% of my AdSense earnings I guess) but not expecting it to shift that much. As it it, my earnings are indeed more for personalised but RPM is higher for contextual so I may see a boost!