Legislation and practices related to cookies and privacy are changing rapidly. At iAdvize, we help you to better understand these constraints and make our solution evolve to allow you to support your visitors in an optimal way, while remaining within the framework imposed by the law. We are always on the lookout for changes in usage and technical solutions, so this article is updated regularly!
Legislation and web practices
Reminder: a cookie is a small file deposited on the hard disk of an Internet user by his browser when he visits a website. This file stores information for future use.
In 2020, the CNIL (French national commission for information technology and civil liberties) adopted guidelines and a recommendation about "cookies and other tracers", followed in 2021 by a series of articles on the same subject. These actions aim to give Internet users a better control over their data during their browsing; in particular, Internet users must give their consent to the use of cookies by the site they are visiting.
In 2022, to better respect the privacy of Internet users, the most widely used browsers (Mozilla, Safari, Chrome in 2023) will no longer support "third party cookies", which are able to track Internet users from domain to domain, generally for marketing purposes. Only "first party cookies", deposited only in connection with the site's domain, continue to function.
Whether the cookies are "third party" or "first-party", Internet users must always consent to their deposit by the site they are visiting, unless it is absolutely essential to the proper use of the site. The CNIL specifies that continuing to browse the site does not mean consent.
The iAdvize cookie
iAdvize only needs one cookie for the conversation to take place: iadvize-SID_NUMBER-vuid, which was previously a "third-party" cookie. From January, 2023, it will become a first-arty cookie (you can make the switch and join the beta by reaching your usual contact at iAdvize). This cookie has two functions:
- targeting visitors according to the criteria of your engagement strategy
- tracking the conversation itself with iAdvize
The data stored by this cookie for a domain is kept for 12 months.
To keep up with the evolution of legislation and new browser practices, the iAdvize cookie will become in 2023 a "first party" cookie by default, associated with the domain on which it is used for each website. No change is required for sites that previously used it as a third-party cookie. As with other services associated with your site, consent is generally required from visitors.
The only restriction is that since a ”first party” cookie is associated with a unique domain, it will no longer possible to track an Internet user with iAdvize on several different sites, even if these sites belong to the same project in iAdvize. However, there is no problem for sub-domains.
When your visitors do not consent to cookies
It is more and more frequent that users refuse cookies when they arrive on a site; according to our observations, this is the case for at least 20% of visitors, and this figure is growing.
iAdvize has therefore developed a solution that we recommend you use to keep 100% of your visitors engaged. This solution work based on the following principle:
- when visitors refuse the cookie deposit, they are still engaged by a notification according to simpler criteria, not requiring a cookie
- they can always start the conversation; before initiating it, they consent to the cookie deposit from the chatbox, at the same time as they validate the GDPR form
- the "conversational" part of the cookie having been accepted, the conversation can then start normally!
This solution, which allows your visitors to consent to cookies directly from the conversation, requires a slight modification of the iAdvize tag and an additional setting in the administration. This article describes this solution in detail.
To know more about our cookies, you can also read: web storage and duration of active sessions
The GDPR & iAdvize