Legal Situation

Digital Marketing - Study Notes:

Understanding consent

You should be aware that there are several data protection considerations associated with web analytics.

As a result of regulations like GDPR in the EU, tracking personally identifiable information – or PII – now requires explicit consent from the consumer. For example, you need to get consent if you are collecting cookie data from website visitors for analysis or in order to personalize advertising experiences. Many analytics programs anonymize user names, IP addresses, and other PII, but you still need consent to share website visitor data anonymously with third parties, like Google Analytics, or with ad platforms.

In relation to GDPR, it is essential that personally identifiable information is managed correctly, and within the terms of the consent provided by your website visitors. Collecting PII as part of your analytics program, and then mismanaging the information, can risk a data breach for improper use of PII.

To ensure this doesn’t happen, your company should have a clear policy or guidelines in place detailing how the analytics data you collect is used and managed. This should include explicit opt-in visitor consent to track user visits, collect anonymous cookie data, and share anonymously with third parties like Google and Facebook for personalization of ads.