Global Privacy Control
As of WideRange version 5.9.6 our websites are now compliant with both Global Privacy Control (GPC) and Do Not Track (DNT) standards. This means that our websites are able to respect users' browser settings about not tracking or sharing data.
What is Global Privacy Control?
I'm sure you've seen the annoying cookie-consent popup banners that have become ubiquitous since the EU instituted their GDPR regulations years ago. Global Privacy Control is a more modern and sensible methodology where people simply select their privacy preferences within their own browser settings, then websites that comply with GPC should automatically respect their preferences. This is a far more sensible solution than consent banners since internet users don't have to make [oftentimes purposely complicated] privacy selections for each and every website they visit; they just set their privacy setting once in their own browser, and every website they visit should automatically respect their choice.
You can learn more about Global Privacy Control here.
Do Not Track settings are basically an older and non-standardized attempt of the same concept.
As of 2024, GPC is only supported by privacy-focused browsers such as Firefox, Brave, and DuckDuckGo. As you might cynically expect, the world's largest advertising company, Google, is so far reluctant to implement it into their Chrome browser. (Yet another reason to use Firefox instead!). That said, both Google Chrome and Apple Safari do offer the older Do Not Track settings which attempt to accomplish the same thing. Also, it is possible to implement GPC functionality into your browser via privacy and ad-blocker extensions like uBlock Origin or Privacy Badger, among others.
Managing GPC compliance with your WideRange website
Version 5.9.6 of the WideRange admin control panel has an updated Analytics page at Settings > Analytics which now features two separate areas where you can enter third party script code: one area is for any tracking scripts, and the second area is for non-tracking scripts.
Any script code that involves tracking should be entered into the Analytics and Tracking Code text area. These would be things like Google Analytics, Facebook Pixel, Lucky Orange, any ad-tracking, etc. Script codes entered here will not be included on the website when a user has their browser's GPC or DNT settings configured for no tracking.
Any other scripts that do not involve tracking of users should be entered into the Non-Tracking Code field. This code will always be included on the website, and can include things like mailing list popup forms, chat support features, site verification tags, or any other third party scripts that support additional non-tracking functionalities such as calendars, custom forms, etc.
It is your responsibility to check your website's settings to ensure that any tracking scripts are entered into the Analytics and Tracking Code field as they should be, in order to respect your users' privacy preferences and comply with Global Privacy Control standards.
If you follow your analytics like a hawk, you may notice a slight dip in traffic stats after this GPC compliance update; however, it is important to understand that you aren't actually losing any traffic or rankings, you just aren't seeing the stats from people who have GPC or DNT enabled in their browsers (which is currently only about 10% of people or less).
As always, please contact me if you have any questions!
