Cookie Consent: What It Is and Why It Matters to Websites
Cookie consent is the action of a website visitor giving their permission for cookies to be used to collect data and personal information for website optimisation and marketing purposes. This consent must be granted under the Personal Data Protection Act (PDPA).
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The Importance of Website Cookies
Over the last two years, you will have noticed a cookie consent banner popping up each time you visit a website. Have you ever wondered what a cookie consent banner is or wanted to see some cookie consent examples? Read on!
In essence, a cookie consent banner is there for you to permit that website to use cookies to record your visit history and use that information to enhance your user experience. The cookies websites collect benefit the user by making your browsing experience more convenient by remembering your username, password, financial information and other data that makes logging in and shopping online easier.
Of course, collecting cookies doesn’t just help enhance user experience but also allows the websites to use personal information and usage behaviour for marketing purposes. Online marketers will analyse the usage behaviour and online shopping activities of their website visitors to help them plan effective strategies for marketing, remarketing and retargeting.
Such data also has a market value. Therefore, collecting data requires cookie consent from the users in response to the PDPA law to protect an individual’s personal information. If a website does not request cookie consent, there could be civil, criminal, and administrative penalties, including imprisonment and a monetary fine of up to five million baht.
What Information Do Cookies Collect?
- Site usage information such as your IP address, log-in data, language settings, etc.
- Usage behaviour, including your purchasing information, website visit data, timestamp, etc.
What Is Cookie Consent? What Does It Consist of?
Implementing cooking consent involves notifying and asking website users for their permission to use non-necessary cookies. Users can change their settings and consent at any time. Cookie consent consists of two parts:
- Privacy Policy: the website operators or companies are required to write a clear and comprehensive privacy policy to inform the users of what type of data will be collected, for what purpose, how long the data will be kept, who can access the data, how the policy will protect users’ personal data, and what the rights of the data subject are.
- Cookie Consent Banner: a pop-up banner to ask for the user’s consent to use different types of cookies for a certain period of time, according to the law. Users can decide whether to consent and change their minds at any time.
How to Create Cookie Consent
For website owners or organisations with no expertise in law, it’s a good idea to hire a firm that offers PDPA services to create a banner and draft a privacy policy for you. There are both free and paid PDPA providers, including PDPA Pro and EasyPDPA.
Simply follow these steps:
- Choose your cookie consent provider, then register and specify your website.
- Customise the banner and policy as desired. You can choose the theme, text, and position to place the banner. There will also be a preview to see how the banner would look on your website.
- Paste the installation code into your website by putting the tag <head> preceding the scripts and other cookies.
When drafting a privacy policy, you can also customise it to suit your business type through your website provider. Both Thai and English are available and the site is updated according to law changes.
Now you should have a good idea of what cookie consent is and why it matters to your business. If you want to plan your online marketing strategy by incorporating user information, contact Primal. We have expertise in planning comprehensive strategies to drive sales for your business.
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