How to prepare for 3 big changes to data privacy in 2024.

It’s been a busy start to the year for our partners at 谷歌 . As major changes to how user activity is tracked online approach, we wanted to give our loyal LinkedIn subscribers the lowdown on what’s coming and how you can prepare.

Change number 1: Consent Mode in Google Ads

Google Consent Mode V2 aims to ensure websites adhere to privacy regulations. Google has announced that all ad accounts operating within the European Economic Area need to implement it by the end of March 2024. If you don’t do this in time some of the key features within Google Ads may stop working.?

This applies to data from:

• Websites: Tags that send data to Google.
• Apps: SDKs that send data to Google.
• Data uploads: Tools to upload data from non-Google sources, such as offline conversion imports or store sales.

What you can do:?

1.???? Check if your site has consent mode working by looking in Google Ads (or ask your digital marketing agency to check for you).

2.???? Make sure you have a functioning cookie banner in place

We’ve prepared some extra information about changes to consent mode on our blog, in case you want to know more ??.

Change number 2: The phase out of third party cookies

Google Chrome plans to phase out third-party cookies by the end of 2024, with initial steps already underway. The Privacy Sandbox is Google’s solution around this, but is still in the early stages of testing.

What can you do to prepare?

1. Check your privacy policy, and your cookie management platform. Tools like?OneTrust?automatically categorise each cookie on your site, identifying their purpose (essential, advertising or analytics) and if they’re of a first or third-party design.
2. Implement features recently introduced by Google such as Consent Mode?and?Enhanced Conversions.
3. A sweep of any platforms or analytics tools you use outside of Google Ads is also worthwhile to see if they offer an alternative setup to using third-party cookies.

Want to know more? We unpack the phase out of third party cookies in more detail in our blog.?

Change number 3: Cookie banners

Late last year the?ICO warned the UK’s top advertisers are still not fully compliant with data protection law. Displaying a cookie banner is only the start. The ICO is also looking more closely at functionality, appearance, and wording.

While there are no hard deadlines for compliance here, actioning the following will help keep you on the right side of the law:

1. Make sure your cookie banner is set up to turn on cookies with the user’s consent, or keep them switched off if they say no
2. Summarise the use of cookies on the website and their purpose
3. Clearly display an accept all and reject all button.

Read more about this on the Launch blog.

For those with questions about the legal implications of these changes, click here to sign up to our a webinar in partnership with Hybrid Legal on 19 March.