Think you comply with the GDPR with a free cookie consent banner for WordPress? Think again.
Most plugins just give you the illusion that your website conforms to requirements in the GDPR.
Here we explain why you should choose a professional GDPR cookie consent solution for your WordPress site – and how to install it.
I have a free cookie banner - what's the problem?
The problem is: it’s not GPDR compliant.
You may have heard that you just have to inform your visitors that your website uses cookies. That’s partly true but informing is all most free plugins do. They provide your website with a small banner somewhere on the site with the text: we use cookies – accept.
However, with the GDPR, you have to collect an active consent and you have to document this consent.
Basically, what can be read in the GDPR is: if your website uses cookies that collect and process your visitors’ personal information, you have to obtain explicit consent before you set cookies in your visitors’ browsers.
But what should a cookie banner do?
The GDPR is really strict on personal data processing. So, whenever you use cookies that collect your users’ personal data – or use services like Google Analytics, Hotjar, YouTube, Hubspot etc. which also set cookies through your site – you have to collect valid consent.
Here’s a short checklist on how to collect valid consent to cookies in the era of the GDPR.
Checklist for collecting
valid consent to cookies
- Block cookies before you get consent
- Offer an easy way for your user to decline cookies
- Inform your users of cookies
- Respect their privacy choices
- Provide an easy way for change or withdraw consent
- Store their consents for 5 years
Does your WordPress free cookie banner meet these standards?
Why go pro with a GDPR consent solution for your website?
With Cookie Information’s Consent Solution for WordPress, we have developed a plugin ready to install on your site.
With the Consent Solution you’ll get:
- GDPR Valid cookie consent pop-up banner
- Checkboxes with toggles for your user to decline cookies (required)
- Cookie policy (information about cookies on your site)
- Log (we'll store your consents for 5 years!)
- In-depth scans of your website cookies so you can stay compliant
- Design templates to get the banner you like
How to install the cookie banner?
To make it work properly requires only a little effort from your side, but when done you can effectively comply with the GDPR.
See our video on how to install Cookie Information’s cookie banner in WordPress
Essentially, you log on to your WordPress admin site, you go to dashboard plugins add new and search for “cookie information”.
Install and activate the plugin and go to the newly created menu in the left sidebar.
Click on Register here and register your domain on our platform (so we know which website to scan).
When done, you can insert the cookie policy and privacy controls short codes on the page you use for informing your users of cookies.
Don’t worry, the cookie banner will automatically pop-up the first time your user visits your website.
There you have it. You now have a pro GDPR cookie consent banner for WordPress on your website. Now you can collect your users consent for all cookies on your site.
It’s free for 30 days, try it out, see if you like it.