Analytics Cookies won’t get blocked

Hi @fuzzydunlop,

I found the following on your website;
…
ga(‘create’, ‘UA-*******082-1’, ‘auto’);
ga(‘send’, ‘pageview’, {
‘anonymizeIp’: true
});

This suggests you might have configured Analytics to be allowed before consent. (the IP addresses are anonymized with “anonymizeIp’: true” by Complianz if the settings in the wizard allow this. )

If this is the case, these cookies are allowed before consent and there’s no problem.

Hope this makes sense, let me know!

regards Aert

Hello Aert, many thanks for your answer and the clarification.

In my opinion, even with all possible privacy options enabled (like anonymizeip), the cookie should only be set after the user’s consent.

Since around the beginning of October, the European Court of Justice has ruled that all cookies that are not required for the display/use of the website require the visitor’s consent. As Analytics is not a necessary service/cookie, it should only be activated when the user consents – even with anonymisation.

Unfortunately, I cannot find an option in your plugin that would allow me to do this. Or am I missing something?

Thanks a lot!

In the wizard under “Statistics”, I have now deselected the following setting: “Google is not authorized to use this data for other Google services”. Even though this is actually the case and I have deactivated that Google is allowed to use the data for other services. But at least now the cookie is not set permanently from the beginning, even with IP anonymization.

Hi @fuzzydunlop . I think you may have heard about the ICO (The British Dataprotection Authority) who recently have said that in GB they will not follow the (draft) e_privacy Regulation when it comes to cookies. Maybe it has something to do with Brexit. They stated that in Britain consent is always needed for statistics (first and third party).They base their opinion on PECR, a local English e-Privacy law. However: According to several other Dataprotection Authorities within the EU it is not necessary to ask visitors for consent to collect website statistics if the owner of the website ensures that the collected personal data are only used for the statistics of that website.The Dutch Authority has created a guideline for using Google analytics without asking for consent. This point of view was actually confirmed only two months ago by CNIL, the French Dataprotection Authority. The dissenting opinion of the UK is one of the reasons why we have created a new region within the plugin: The UK. For that region, and only that region, consent is always asked for the use of statistical cookies (even first party cookies).

Yes, we are aware of the recent ruling of the EU-Court. However, that ruling has said absolutely nothing about the question if analytics cookies are allowed without consent. https://curia.europa.eu/jcms/upload/docs/application/pdf/2019-10/cp190125en.pdf They ruled that if you need consent, which is not always the case, that consent should be given freely and actively. (so pre-ticked is not allowed), and that a cookiepolicy should give enough information about the placed cookies. Our plugin actually has endorsed and supported this point of view since we started in May 2018.

I hope this explanation helps. So since this is not a technical or legal bug I will putt this on resolved.

Hi Mathieu,

thank you for your detailed answer. I am pretty sure that you know much better about legal matters than I do.

I was referring to an article on a German IT news site. Golem.de (and other German news sites as well) have interpreted the legal verdict in such a way that any cookie that is not technically necessary requires the user’s consent. https://www.golem.de/news/eugh-urteil-jeder-cookie-erfordert-einwilligung-der-nutzer-1910-144187.html

The press release you have linked states that prechecked is not allowed. Also “That decision is unaffected by whether or not the information stored or accessed on the user’s equipment is personal data”. I think if prechecked is not allowed, then it is certainly even less allowed to have no choice. And we’re talking about Google here.

Anyway. Your plugin now works the way I need it to and it’s the best consent plugin I’ve tried so far. Thanks a lot!