Under Google's EU User Consent Policy , you must make certain disclosures to your users in the European Economic Area (EEA), the UK, and Switzerland, and obtain their consent for the use of cookies or other local storage where legally required and for the collection, sharing, and use of personal data for ads personalization. This policy reflects the requirements of:
- EU ePrivacy Directive
- General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR).
Using Privacy & messaging, you can create and display a message to your users to help gather consents required under the GDPR and other European regulations. Review the Guidelines for using Privacy & messaging for more information.
Remember: It is your responsibility to make sure your messages meet legal requirements.
Jump to
- Publisher consent management journeys
- Create an European regulations message
- Tools and guides for your European regulations messages
- Frequently asked questions (FAQs)
Publisher consent management journeys
There are several different paths you can choose from to obtain consent from your users in the EEA, the UK, and Switzerland and comply with Google’s EU Consent policy . You may build your own consent solution and complete the certification, use the messaging tools on the Privacy & messaging page, or use a third party certified consent management platform (CMP).
Consider the following options:
1. Publisher uses Google CMP
You can use the controls on the Privacy & messaging page (Ad Manager, AdMob, AdSense) to manage the settings for various privacy regulations. Optionally, use the messaging features to create and manage the messages you use to obtain consent from your users.
2. Publisher uses an IAB-certified CMP
Google is introducing support for the IAB Transparency and Consent Framework v2.3 across our sell-side ads products (Ad Manager, AdMob, AdSense)
Learn more about implementing the IAB TCF v2.3 .
3. Publisher builds their own consent solution or uses a CMP that isn't certified by IAB
You can build your own consent solution or use a CMP that isn't certified by IAB. Then, deploy it on your sites and apps.
Review the help center documentation to learn how you can manage the ad technology providers on your site or app and how you can control personalization in our ad tags.
Quick start
Create a European regulations message for your sites or for your apps . If you want to go to your account and create a regulations message now, click the button below.
Below, find links to more help center pages with resources and information about your consent messages.
Choose your EU regulations consent message: two vs. three options
A European regulations message contains multiple "screens" (or "pages") that are shown to users depending on which buttons and links they click in your messages. The button options presented to users can be configured on a per-country basis and are based upon your selections in the "User choices" section during message creation.
Set up and manage your Consent Management Platform (CMP)
As of January 16, 2024, publishers and developers using Google AdSense, Ad Manager, or AdMob are required to use a Consent Management Platform (CMP) that has been certified by Google and has integrated with the IAB's Transparency and Consent Framework (TCF) when serving ads to users in the European Economic Area, the UK, or Switzerland.
Add ad technology providers
As part of Google’s commitment to complying with the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), we provide publishers with controls to select which ad technology providers are allowed to serve and measure ads in the European Economic Area (EEA), the UK, and Switzerland, to support ad delivery, ad measurement, and other functions.
Declare ad technology providers for creatives in Ad Manager reservation campaigns
Declare ad technology providers that you work with on reservation creatives. Reservation creatives are associated with non-programmatic line items, including guaranteed (Sponsorship and Standard) and non-guaranteed (Network, Bulk, Price Priority, and House). Google will check for consent for any ad technology providers that you declare when determining whether reservation creatives are eligible to serve.
Opt into real-time bidding creatives for user consent
Real-time bidding (RTB) creative checking allows Google to filter out RTB creatives where the vendor pixels don’t contain the correct user consent (as detected by our systems). This may include creative ad servers, fraud and invalid traffic detection, measurement, attribution, and other ad tech vendors.
Tag an ad request for EEA, the UK, and Switzerland users for restricted data processing
You can mark your ad requests to receive treatment for users in the European Economic Area (EEA), the UK, and Switzerland for restricted data processing using the TFUA (formerly “Tag For Under the Age of Consent”) tag.
Commonly asked questions about European regulations messages
Along with the FAQs you can find at the bottom of most articles in this help center, we have created a dedicated article that addresses some of the top questions in relation to the EU User Consent Policy audit. To learn more about the policy, visit our EU User Consent Policy Help Center .
Frequently asked questions (FAQs)
What's the support for the IAB TCF specification?
European regulations messages created in Privacy & messaging have been updated to support the IAB TCF v2.3 specification .
What is 'Consent Mode'?
Google's Consent Mode allows other Google products you use (like Google Ads and Google Analytics) to respect your users' consent choices. If enabled, Google’s CMP can interpret your existing EEA, UK, and Swiss user consent choices for consent mode’s advertising purposes (including ad storage, personalization, and user data) and analytics storage. This setting streamlines ad measurement, personalization, and product optimization that require user consent, without altering your current consent message. You can choose to enable consent mode in the settings page of your European regulations message in the Privacy & Messaging tab. If this setting is enabled, it will apply to all of your European regulations messages shown on the web and in apps, but will not apply to messages shown on AMP.
You can determine which consent mode implementation type
you prefer, Basic
or Advanced
. Learn more about implementation types and how to configure your chosen implementation on web and on app:
- Web
- iOS: AdMob , Ad Manager
- Android: AdMob , Ad Manager
This setting is only applicable for those who want to use Google's CMP to obtain consent and provide transparency for the use of both our publisher and advertising products. If you already use another CMP for consent mode signal collection, review your legal requirements before enabling this feature to ensure a smooth user experience. Learn more about tag behavior with consent mode .
Google's CMP will only update consent choices for users who are shown a European regulations message, so be sure to set consent mode default consent states
according to your desired behavior for users outside of the EEA, UK, and Switzerland. Learn more about setting region-specific consent mode behavior
on web and leveraging the eu_consent_policy
default value option
on app.
How do I use Google’s Additional Consent technical specification?
Privacy & messaging European regulations messages you create using the IAB Transparency and Consent Framework utilize Google’s “Additional Consent" technical specification. This is how Privacy & messaging transmits consent decisions to vendors that are not tagged with the “TCF” icon in the IAB Europe Transparency and Consent vendor list ( Ad Manager , AdMob , AdSense ).
The Additional Consent specification sends transparency and/or consent signals to vendors that have not yet registered on the IAB Europe Global Vendor List (GVL) (these vendors do not have the “TCF” icon in the vendor list). This specification enables publishers, Consent Management Platforms (CMPs), and partners to gather and propagate additional consent—alongside their TCF v2.3 implementation—for companies that are not yet registered with the IAB Europe Global Vendor List but are on Google's Ad Tech Providers (ATP) list.
Learn more about "Additional Consent" in Ad Manager, AdMob, or AdSense:
What is TFUA?
If the publisher identifies a user as being under the legal age of consent and sends the TFUA signal on apps through the UMP SDK, the European regulations message will be suppressed for that user. Learn more about how ad serving behaves for users under the age of consent .
How do I request consent for my own use of data?
What is consent revocation?
