If you’re here, you probably have a website, or maybe you're planning to launch one! For decades now, Brands and businesses have been continuously trying to enhance people's online experience.
To do that, businesses take their customers' information such as name, gender, age, ethnicity, credit card, account number, and literally everything you can think about.
Even the Mobile Phone, desktop, or tablet you’re reading this blog, will have a blueprint of your online behavior.
Well, that’s necessary otherwise, the internet will go blunt, and the utmost motto of the internet, “connecting people,” will die!
In this exchange of information between brands and customers, consent is the only thing that draws the line. Having your customers’ consent to use their data and to what extent.
In the coming 2023, having a CMP consent management platform is not good to have its a must have.
What is CMP Consent Management Platform?
A CMP Consent Management is a SaaS platform that allows brands and businesses websites and apps to comply with data privacy regulations of European Union GDPR, California’s CCPA, California’s CPRA, Virginia VCDPA, and more.
With a consent-management platform (CMP) in place, websites have the technical capability to inform visitors about the types of data they’ll collect and ask for their consent for specific data processing purposes.
Consent management can also be used to alert users to changes in how the site gathers or processes their information, such as new policies or frequency of visits.
With consent management in place, websites can perform legal obligations and comply with regulations through an easy-to-use CMP consent tool. An effective way to ensure visitors or potential customers know what data is being collected, how it will be processed, and why they need to grant consent.
Why Your Website Needs Consent Management?
I do not sell my data, but why do I need a CMP consent management platform? That’s the most common question, maybe you had to! That is fair enough that you do not sell data, but maybe you are the medium of data transferring to someone else who sells your data.
Let us break it down for you.
According to the data privacy laws such as European Union GDPR, California’s CCPA, California’s CPRA, Brazil's LGPDA, Virginia VCDPA, Colorado CPA, and many others coming.
To summarize these privacy regulations, if your business is collecting, selling, or sharing information about your customers, in any form, for example, cookies, third-party cookies, or first-party data such as forms or newsletter submission, you will fall under these regulations, and compliance is must! Otherwise, the fines are just around the corner.
Violating these privacy laws could result in massive fines and reputational damage! A recent example is Sephora, which falls under the violation of the CCPA privacy act for selling customers' data to third parties without their consent: resulting in a massive $1.2 Million fine.
You are Not Selling but are You Sharing?
When we talk about the sharing of data, it does not mean you are doing it intentionally, it might be possible that you are not even aware of it.
Google products include Google Analytics, Google Tag Manager, and Google Ads. Websites or Apps integrated with any of these products fall under the data sharing category, which violates data privacy regulations.
Websites or Apps require a third-party CMP consent management solution to collect, align, & store consent across platforms and allow users to experience their access rights without compromising the user experience.
If you advertise to your users, they can't consent to the data processing. Why?
Because they don’t know what you might do with it. But it gets worse: not only are you not breaking the law if a user clicks on an email but also if they install a Flash ad.
If they receive marketing emails based on their activities online, you're also likely doing everything by the book in terms of designing your system so that people can understand what's being done with their personal data.
This is because most consent requirements are relatively straightforward, like asking users for permission before collecting sensitive data about their background and current activities and creating and managing non-sensitive databases in an appropriate way.
De-identifying and anonymizing sensitive data when sharing it with third parties and applying measures such as encryption before letting outsiders access it... there aren't really any gray areas here!
(CMP) Consent Management Platform in 2023!
The GDPR has been a game changer for the consent management industry. After so much work in the consent management space, it is necessary for companies to ensure that their products are compliant with these new data privacy regulations.
Users must be able to see how their information will be used when considering whether or not to use a product or app.
Companies should also be clear about what data has been collected by CMP consent management platforms, so users can make informed decisions about using products and apps.
With the privacy regulations such as the VCDPA Virginia Consumer data privacy act and CPRA California Privacy Act Coming in 2023.
CMP Consent Management platforms have advanced greatly since this data protection initiative passed and required additional features to hide from the grey zone.
Mobile App Consent
Whether it’s a simple app that tracks your daily routine or a complex one that runs your entire business, they all have one thing in common—they need your data! Sure, all apps are stored on our mobile phones and laptops until we delete ‘them.
But that doesn’t mean these Apps aren’t causing havoc in our lives by leaking our information. What if there are more leaks than you know about?
Mobile apps that collect information from users without asking are a no-no. Mobile solutions are required by the CCPA and GDPR and will be required for many other privacy regulations going forward. Learn about how to get consent and use security controls in your mobile apps.
A cookie scan is the first step in this process. After identifying all third-party cookies and other tracking technologies, review and categorize findings from the scan that identify privacy permissions, frameworks, and SDKs.
The Consent Management Platform allows for the capture and maintains user consent across multiple channels in real-time. A centralized place to manage users who have consented to your marketing activities.
Customize your CMP Consent Management Platform to capture and store records while it syncs and preferences across systems in real-time to ensure consistency for sales and marketing.
Session Recording
Session recording is a feature that gives business proof of consent by recording the instance of users providing cookie consent or signing up for a form or newsletter. which gave businesses legit proof-of consent, apart from their consent records, for the time of Privacy Compliance Audits.
Recording a session is saved when the user gives his consent. Click on Recording and then click on the ID to watch the recording.
You can also see the recording in full-screen mode. And can also download the session recording for further assistance.
Automated Cookie Blocking
As per the recent updates in GDPR, websites or Apps do not drop their Social media cookies, analytics cookies, or advertisement cookies on the first interaction with the users! Until and unless the user itself provides cookies consent.
Automated Cookie Blocking features make this process easy for businesses. With this feature, you can block the cookies of any category except strictly necessary cookies. Until the user gives their consent on the cookie banner that sets a trigger and enable cookie under that category.
Google Consent Mode
Google's Consent Mode integration allows businesses to manage the privacy compliances of end-users with the help of Google Tag Manager and eradicates the complex coding with the predefined templates in the tag manager container.
Google Ads
Google Analytic G4 & Universal Analytics
Floodlight
Conversion Linker
Social Media (Pixel code Meta – LinkedIn insight tag)
Users can set triggers through the cookie banner whether consent has been accepted for Analytics, Advertising, or Social media cookies, and Google's tags will dynamically adapt by only utilizing cookies of specified categories.
Conclusion
So, the scales are tipped. If you don't comply with GDPR, CCPA, and CPRA a penalty fee could be thousands of dollars per violation. If you do comply via a two-page pop-up that covers half the screen and looks like it was designed in 2000, the penalty will be lower, but your users might abandon you for more privacy-friendly platforms and competitors.
Effective data handling (and thereby lawful data processing) directly correlates with strong business performance. As marketing and advertising are considered to be the key drivers behind any successful business development, the CPRA, GDPR, and CCPA-compliant CMP consent management platform can become one of the main pillars for your digital success.