Google issues updated GDPR guidance to publishers on how to gain consent from users

Google has updated its cookie guidance resource, CookieChoices, to include new tips and suggestions to advertisers and publishers in advance of the May 25 deadline for enforcement of the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). GDPR is a sweeping set of rules governing the handling of European Union (EU) members��� personal data. The updates follow a March AdWords blog post that said these changes would be coming. The CookieChoices site launched in 2014. Its GDPR updates include a link to its EU user consent policy, sample consent notices and third-party consent tools for publishers to use on their own sites. The updated site also lets publishers know that if they serve ads through Google, they will need to get additional consent. The March blog post spurred a group of publishers to say that Google’s GDPR policy “falls severely short,” by considering publishers “co-controllers,” a designation that forces publishers to collect consent and then share it to the Google network as a whole. But Google says that publishers are required to collect consent for their own site visitors, per GDPR’s rules regarding controllers and processors.