Google begin warning publishers over EU User Consent and GDPR

Google have begun issuing warnings to some publishers who they have deemed to be outside of their EU User Consent policy. Google’s EU User Consent policy deals is part of their GDPR compliance and deals largely with obtaining permissions to use cookies and to personalise ads. Because Google needs permission to process personal information they need publishers to collect that permission.

Google’s policy has quite specific requirements and publishers using some of the best known GDPR solutions such as the Quantcast Choice CMP have been surprised to receive warnings that they are not compliant due to the way that they have been implemented.

OKO have recently published a free guide to making your website compliant with Google’s EU User Consent policy. Based on our analysis of hundreds of domains, the knowledge we have of policy as Certified Partners and discussions with Google, this guide looks behind the policy and gives publishers easy to understand guidance to become compliant. Download it for free today here.

Customer ID: ca-pub-xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Dear Publisher,

On 25 May this year, we updated our EU User Consent Policy to coincide with the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) coming into force. This Policy outlines your responsibility for making disclosures to, and obtaining consent from, end users of your sites and apps in the European Economic Area (EEA).

It has come to our attention that the site(s) or app(s) listed in the attached file don’t obtain consent from users and, therefore, don’t comply with our Policy. Our Policy reflects our understanding of GDPR compliance based on guidance from EU Data Protection Authorities (DPAs).

If you’ve received guidance from your local DPA which indicates that in fact your current approach satisfies its requirements for GDPR compliance, please let us know. In that case, we’d be happy to reconsider our assessment. To facilitate that, please send a copy of such guidance from your DPA to [email protected].

Policy requirements

The EU User Consent Policy outlines your responsibility as a user of our ad technology to:

• Obtain EEA end users’ consent to:
  • the use of cookies or other local storage where legally required and
  • the collection, sharing and use of personal data for personalisation of ads.

• Identify each party that may collect, receive or use end users’ personal data as a consequence of your use of a Google product.

• Provide end users with prominent and easily accessible information about those parties’ use of personal data.

Please respond to this message by completing this form as soon as possible to inform us about your compliance approach. We’ll review your response and monitor your account, and take action if required by 12 Feb 2019.

Find out more
You can refer to cookiechoices.org and our Policy help page for more information on complying with our Policy. We also recommend that you consult with your legal department regarding your compliance with the GDPR and our policies.

Sincerely,
The Google Policy Team