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.)

[puente]

say a site doesn't cookie or track users, doesn't collect info, doesn't send emails, and doesn't log traffic, but uses adsense and google analytics. does this site need to to anything with respect to gdpr or just leave it to google to handle the intricacies? a small website operation doesn't have the funds for lawyers and consultants to figure this out. so far all gdpr has managed to do is to fill inboxes with spam about gdpr.

[bgweb]

@Cralamarre. Thanks for that. Difficult to know what the criteria will be. I'm showing a notice and only contextuals on first look. A lot of other sites are showing a notice and personalised ads on first look. Others are doing nothing.

[QuaterPan]

say a site doesn't cookie or track users, doesn't collect info, doesn't send emails, and doesn't log traffic, but uses adsense and google analytics. does this site need to to anything with respect to gdpr or just leave it to google to handle the intricacies? a small website operation doesn't have the funds for lawyers and consultants to figure this out. so far all gdpr has managed to do is to fill inboxes with spam about gdpr.

You have to do at least that - [webmasterworld.com...] "at least"

[Cralamarre]

@bgweb Sounds like for the time being at least, Google will only be checking for a consent banner. What I'm more interested in is finding out if Google will accept the consent banner that many sites have chosen to use, with a statement like "This site uses cookies to analyze traffic, personalize your experience and serve ads. By continuing to use this site, you agree to the use of cookies", followed by an "I Agree" button.

[QuaterPan]

By continuing to use this site,

This is one of the grief that the French digital rights group La Quadrature du Net is using to attack Google.

[bgweb]

@Cralamarre Indeed. Also do they consider it acceptable if the banner is removed if the user clicks on to another page.

[Cralamarre]

I don't know anything about La Quadrature du Net, but any "rights" group that believes my visitors have more of a right to my content than I have will get no support from me (and that's the polite version of what I was going to say).

[Cralamarre]

Good article on Search Engine Roundtable today about how these consent banners can affect your rankings:

[seroundtable.com...]

[QuaterPan]

but any "rights" group that believes my visitors have more of a right to my content than I have will get no support from me

So you'll be happy to learn they are also attacking the fact that a site does not have the right to block the access to visitors who are refusing to accept cookies.

But if Google is caught into troubles because of the implicit consent, they'll force web publishers to get explicit consent to avoid billions of fines.

Good article on Search Engine Roundtable today about how these consent banners can affect your rankings:

He basically said you can use pop ups but make sure they are not intrusive, make sure the content is still visible to GoogleBot and make sure to test it with the mobile-friendly testing tool.

Considering the size of a mobile device, a GDPR message box is at least taking 1/3 of the screen at best, so it's impossible to not make it intrusive!

Hopefully, the ePrivacy Regulation will arrive quickly (or not), and free web publishers of all this mess. (and hoping ad networks find a work around, lot of "hopes")

[BoredMeteor]

Just found out about this: [saveyourinternet.eu...]

From the beginning, I've felt like all this is really just an attempt by the EU to control the Internet, and this Article 13 looks like an attempt to drive the stake in even further. I mean, they don't want you to link? That's literally asking to break the Internet!

Thanks for the link to Google's GDPR troubleshooter, by the way. Interesting stuff.

[nubchai]

I just saw this link from GA: "To support publishers in complying with Google's updated EU User Consent Policy, EU user consent settings are now available." It links to new settings you can set for EU visitors, ad providers etc.

Do we have to use Google's EU consent settings? I have Wordpress sites and am using Cookie Consent with GeoIP Detection plugins. For the EU I display my cookie policy. Then I get their consent. I also only show non-personalized ads to EU visitors. Is that sufficient? Thanks.

[Ebuzz]

What is this "EU User Consent Gathering" that we need to apply? Is that referring to the Cookie Banners that I flash on my sites for years now?

[QuaterPan]

Just found out about this: [saveyourinternet.eu...]

This should be discussed independently from the Adsense/GDPR
[webmasterworld.com...]

What is this "EU User Consent Gathering" that we need to apply? Is that referring to the Cookie Banners that I flash on my sites for years now?

If you did not disabled personalized ads , this is not enough, because you need to obtain the explicit consent from the user before displaying these ads. If you disabled personalized ads for EU visitors, the cookie banner may or may not be enough either. This cookie banner was seen as acceptable by the web publishers community, but depending of the country, regulators do not have the same interpretation of this kind of implicit consent.

[edited by: QuaterPan at 6:31 am (utc) on May 31, 2018]

[keyplyr]

• Non-personalized Ads for EU visitors
• Cookie Acceptance Banner
AND
• Secure & Encrypted Data Storage [webmasterworld.com]

[steviec79]

Anybody using Wordpress?
If so, what plugin are you using?

Answers on a post card.

I've currently got some code added into the header section, but always looking to see if there's anything better.

[stever]

Referring to the John Mueller discussion, it is kind of interesting that there is potentially a legal obligation now to serve all users content without certain cookie- or tracker-using items (including AS) and only certain users, excluding Googlebot which cannot make an explicit choice, get to see that content.

[steviec79]

Wasn't there a legal obligation to show a cookie banner, which most people ignored?

[bgweb]

Lots of sites (inc some big UK ones) still doing zip squadly. The problem is that will simply draw attention from the regulators and big ad agencies. End result? More regulation and further tightening with the rest of us losing out despite making an effort.

[stever]

Wasn't there a legal obligation to show a cookie banner, which most people ignored?

Indeed. As well as a legal obligation in certain countries to have a privacy policy page (for example, from 24.02.16 in Germany), which was also somewhat ignored.

[EUmember]

According to German news the first notifications have been served by lawyers, with notification fees up to 700€ - for non compliance eg. referring to Cookies and not-enough-detailed privacy policies. It seems that the origin are complaints by competitors (or alleged competitors...).

[steviec79]

Sounds about right. But what would be interesting is what they currently have on their privacy policies - what was missing.

[stever]

But what would be interesting is what they currently have on their privacy policies - what was missing.

The article I read said that a couple were for Google Analytics without the option to turn it off and one was for dropping cookies without explicit permission.

I think actually the Mahnungen (legal warnings) have been sent by lawyers acting for the competing websites under the German law covering 'unfair competition' - I misread it before to understand that they were claiming thousands, they are just claiming 10% (which is a very high percentage for that kind of thing) warning fee. (Mahnungsgebühr?)

[kelsheikh]

So If Im in the US and my sites get traffic just from the US and I got no visitors from the EU, do I select personalized or non-personalized? If I select non-personalized, I still have to have the cookie consent banner up? Im so lost with all this. Did most select non-personalized?

[riccarbi]

After Adblockers, GDPR is just another nail in the coffin of web display advertising. Better for all owning EU (and not only) content-based websites to start planning how to move to paid access, or to forms of monetization other than AdSense and the like.

[steviec79]

I'm getting quite a lot of people wanting to pay me for a guest post. I'm thinking it could be better than Adsense if it picks up.

[surfgatinho]

I think I am going to block all EU countries except UK and Ireland from most of my sites. So not worth the hassle...

[pmays]

So it's very nice they write "our first step will be to contact you to try to remedy the issue", so we will not lose the account. That's the most important message for me.

[MayankParmar]

@steviec79 I am also receiving such requests, way too many in the last couple of days.

They need dofollow links, and it's a no from me :P

[edited by: MayankParmar at 7:22 pm (utc) on May 31, 2018]

[QuaterPan]

According to German news the first notifications have been served by lawyers, with notification fees up to 700€ - for non compliance eg. referring to Cookies and not-enough-detailed privacy policies. It seems that the origin are complaints by competitors (or alleged competitors...).

Here it goes. All this worries me.

So If Im in the US and my sites get traffic just from the US and I got no visitors from the EU, do I select personalized or non-personalized? If I select non-personalized, I still have to have the cookie consent banner up? Im so lost with all this. Did most select non-personalized?

Since you do not have EU visitors, you are not concerned. BUT, among your visitors, there are certainly some form the EU anyhow. So, yes, disabled personalized ads for EU visitors only. And yes, display a cookie banner to your EU visitors. (or to everybody).

They need dofollow links, and it's a no from me :P

If they pay you, then they need something in exchange.

[NickMNS]

According to German news the first notifications have been served by lawyers, with notification fees up to 700€ - for non compliance eg. referring to Cookies and not-enough-detailed privacy policies. It seems that the origin are complaints by competitors (or alleged competitors...).

Here it goes. All this worries me.

Here what goes, Lawyers trying to make a buck? I'm predicting that the EU will fall apart (Brexit, Italy, etc...) before any serious fines are collected.