Cookies and the GDPR: RocketMill Moment

This month the European Court of Justice provided further clarification around the GDPR and there was a couple of really interesting points that stood out to me:

1. Pre-ticked boxes that assume consent in terms of a user are no longer a valid form of consent
2. It now does not matter whether the Cookies that you are dropping onto people’s devices contain personal data.  It is therefore clear that we now need unambiguous, active consent in order to collect the data that most websites do.

If this ruling is followed, it’s going to have some pretty sizable impact upon our industry.

We’re going to get less data, of course, and that means we’re going to need to model the data that we do receive. I would expect to see the platforms, such as Google Analytics leading this, rather than everybody having to do it their own specific way.

The other change I think that we’ll start to see is that the collection of first party data becoming even more important, even more of a competitive advantage than it is today. What the end user will see is more
logged in experiences; providing value in a unique experience, in a logged in environment, and enabling the website to procure that all-important first party data.

It is fascinating to see how this is all going to play out and it will change our sector if the ruling is followed – quite literally – and we’re very much here to help businesses if they are struggling with it.