Remember the EU Cookie Law and the hive of activity that ensued as European Union businesses took measures to implement the policy? Most bloggers ignored the directive but Google has decided to launch their own user consent policy.
If you are a Google AdSense publisher you are now required to ask visitors from the European Union for their permission for using their data.
Google says the new user consent policy is in reaction to requests by European Union data protection authorities. “It has always been Google’s policy to comply with privacy laws, so we’ve agreed to make certain changes affecting our own products and partners using Google products,” Jason Woloz, Security & Privacy Program Manager for Display and Video Ads at Google, wrote in a blog post announcing the change.
No matter what country you are living in, as long as you use AdSense and have visitors from the EU, you now need to comply with the EU Cookie law. In an email sent out in July, Google gave publishers until 30 September to comply.
Google gives tips on how to implement the policy and comply with EU laws on a website called Cookie Choices.
EU Cookie Law plugins
For WordPress webmasters, implementing this new policy will only take a few minutes, as there are several plugins you can use.
The UK Cookie Consent plugin is one easy way to implement the policy. Once installed and activated, the plugin creates a cookie page with some text about what cookies are. You can adapt this text to meet the needs of your site. The plugin places a banner at the top of the site telling visitors that your site uses cookies and linking to your cookie page.
Shareaholic has launched a new Cookie Consent banner as part of their suite of tools. If you are already using the Shareaholic plugin you can activate the banner by signing into your account and following the steps on their site.
Most webmasters will find it easier to use the implied consent option. This basically tells your visitors that you use cookies. It doesn’t give an option to turn cookies off. If visitors aren’t happy they have the option to leave your site.
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