In this article, we will focus on websites for our customers in the USA whose visitors are primarily US based. If your site receives any visitors from Europe, your site MUST have a cookie policy in place. In such case, it is regulated by the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and the ePrivacy Directive (ePR). If your site has web traffic from Europe, we are happy to provide you more information. Simply contact us directly by emailing us or calling our office 707-794-9999 US Pacific Standard Time.

Cookies are small programs placed on websites to track visitors. For instance, if your site has Google Analytics (most do), your site has cookies. The same is true for YouTube videos and other popular web elements. If you are unsure, we can do a complimentary assessment for you by using Cookiebot’s consent management platform.

If some of your website visitors are residents of California, your site falls under the ruling of the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA). In such case, you may or may not be required to have a cookie policy in place.

Only the companies meeting one or more of the following criteria needs it by law.

• Have a gross annual revenue of over $25 million;
• Or buy, receive, or sell the personal information of 50,000 or more California residents, households, or devices;
• Or derive 50% or more of their annual revenue from selling California residents’ personal information.

More details are available at https://oag.ca.gov/privacy/ccpa There have been talks about making the cookie policy required for all websites with US visitors but it has not yet been made law. So, for now, your site needs a cookie policy if your company meets one of the criteria mentioned above.

Typically, the tool we integrate on your site will read as follows:

This website uses cookies – We use cookies to personalize content and ads, to provide social media features and to analyze our traffic. We also share information about your use of our site with our social media, advertising and analytics partners who may combine it with other information that you’ve provided to them or that they’ve collected from your use of their services.

Below is a sample of the CookieBot tool on one of our valued customers’ site. Click to enlarge.

The integrated tool also has options for the users to choose from. This way they can set the preferences that work best for them. Once their preferences have been recorded, they are stored, issued a unique ID, and recorded by the program we install. We can set it up so that they have to agree to the policy every month, a specific number of months (up to 12), or every 12 months.

In addition to this work, we add a cookie policy on your Terms of Use page. There, the user can modify his preferences at any time. Each time he does, a new Consent ID is issued and recorded for your website by CookieBot.

Below is a sample of the CookieBot policy in action. Click to enlarge.

Note that we offer a complimentary online demonstration should you be interested in adding a cookie policy to your website.