Consent Management Platform - Everything You Need to Know

As more and more websites use cookies to remember important pieces of information about visitors who have been to their site, utilizing a computer user’s information to target them for ads in the future has pretty much become the norm. However, not all consumers want to have their data mined to be targeted for ads later on.

Due to this, data protection programs have begun all over the world, with the EU’s General Data- Protection Regulation being the best well known.

As a website, how are you supposed to keep up with the consumers who click “yes” to cookies and the ones who say that cookies are a “no-go.”

By using a consent management platform, you can make sure that your site will never break GDPR or any other data-regulation laws.

How Do Consent Management Platforms Work?

Essentially consent management platforms are responsible for telling any visitors on the site about what kinds of data will be collected from that specific visitor. The consent management platform will also ask for the user’s consent before collecting any data from the user.

Consent management platforms are typically responsible for:

• Showing the pop-ups that tell visitors about granting their consent
• Acquiring and keeping any information about the visitor from their consent choices. The program will then be responsible for keeping track of any changes that the visitor may choose in the future.
• The program will only fire tags that are allowed under the GDPR’s rules before the user gives their consent.
• The program will manage any of the user’s request in regards to their data. For example, this could include the consumer’s want to erase their data or stop cookies from tracking them.

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How To Know If Your Site Needs A Consent Management Platform

The short answer is that almost every website on the internet needs a consent management form of some kind. Even if your website is no, physically located inside of the EU, your site must still reach their regulations since your site could be accessed by anyone who does live in the EU. If your business processes any type of financial information, and it doesn’t provide the right kinds of awareness to users about the data collection that is taking place, then your business could be fined.

If any of the below activities are taking place on your site, you may want to consider getting a consent management platform:

• Keeping any user’s data- if you are going to use any of your visitor’s data for behavioral advertising, remarketing ads, content personalization, or email marketing.
• Computer generated decision making- for example, building profile demographics of your consumers.
• Transferring visitors’ data to other companies- if you collect any data from EU citizens. If you don’t have a consent management platform, you may want to consider blocking IP addresses from the EU from your website.

If your website fits with any of these parameters consider gaining a consent management system! It could save you a lot of trouble in the long room and keeping your site from being fined.