Regions and privacy signals
By default every visitor sees the banner. This page explains how you limit it to chosen countries, what visitors elsewhere get, and how Cookiemark treats the privacy signal some browsers send.
Who gets the banner
On the site's Regions tab you choose between two settings.
- Every visitor. Everyone is asked first, wherever they are. This is the default and the safest choice.
- Only visitors from the countries below. Visitors from those countries are asked first. Visitors from elsewhere get no banner, and the categories you offer are allowed for them straight away.
The country list starts with the 32 countries of the European Economic Area, the United Kingdom and Switzerland. You can add or remove countries with their two-letter codes, separated by commas.
Before you limit the banner, check which laws apply to your visitors. Many countries outside Europe have consent rules of their own. When in doubt, ask everyone.
How the country is found
On the first page of a visit, the script asks Cookiemark whether the visitor's country is on your list. We read the country from the connection and store nothing about it. The answer is kept in the browser tab's session storage, so the question is asked once per visit, not once per page.
When we cannot tell the country, or the question fails, the visitor gets the banner. Cookiemark always errs on the side of asking.
Visitors outside your countries
- They see no banner, and the scripts of every category you offer run straight away.
- Google Consent Mode applies the denied defaults only in your countries, and Cookiemark grants the signals for this visitor.
- Nothing goes into the consent log, because the visitor made no choice.
- The button to reopen the preferences does not show.
window.Cookiemarkstill answers your code, and the Cookiebot API reports the choice asimplied.
Testing region settings
To see what a visitor elsewhere gets, use a VPN with an address in another country. Open the site in a new private window, because a tab remembers its answer for the rest of the visit.
Global Privacy Control and Do Not Track
Some browsers send a signal that says "do not track me". Global Privacy Control is the current one, and Do Not Track is its older relative. The setting Respect Global Privacy Control on the Regions tab is on for every new site.
For a visitor whose browser sends either signal and who has no stored choice, this happens:
- Cookiemark refuses every optional category on their behalf, and shows no banner.
- The refusal is stored in the consent cookie, and logged with the choice "Privacy signal".
- The button to reopen the preferences shows, so the visitor can still allow cookies if they want to.
A visitor who later allows something keeps that choice, because the signal only counts when there is no stored choice. The signal is checked before the country, so it applies wherever the visitor is.
California and several other US states expect websites to honour Global Privacy Control. Leave the setting on unless your own legal advice says otherwise.
How long a choice lasts
Under Ask again after you choose how long a choice is remembered: 6, 12 or 13 months. After that the banner shows again. Six months is the default, because the Dutch and French regulators recommend it.
To ask everyone again before that time, use Ask everyone again under Settings and publish. Do that when you add a new kind of tracking. Old choices stay in the log.