Is it possible to change defaults in 'manage options'?

[Alex Cretney]

When a user selects 'manage options' on the google UMP popup, various 'legitimate interest' toggles are selected, however the most important permission 'Store and/or access information on a device' defaults to off.

Is it possible to set this to default to on? 

Reasoning: 

No other permission is relevant if this defaults to off because this will block delivery of ALL ads. 

Obviously a typical user is not going to read ANY of the options on this page. Between them, the EU and Google refuse to offer users a simple, user friendly option to accept targeted ads, or accept un-targeted ads (The only things a normal human understands or cares about, and what would be offered if the EU or Google honestly cared about empowering end users to control their privacy).

The users flow then will be...

1) Click 'Manage Options' out of curiosity to see whats in there

2) Roll their eyes, lament the existence of the corrupt, useless EU beurocrats and just click 'Confirm Choices' 

Result: They have just denied permission for all ads. The user cannot be monetised yet becomes a lasting cost and drain on backend resources. 

If 'Store and/or access information on a device' defaults to on, then we will at least be able to serve them untargeted ads in this event which will occur 100% of the time, when the user selects 'Manage Options' out of curiosity. 

If this is not possible, can you please confirm what options are set if you offer the 'Do Not Consent' button? Does this at least result in the ability to serve untargetted ads or is it another 'no consent' scenario?

[Mobile Ads SDK Forum Advisor]

Hi Alex,

UMP SDK must comply with the IAB Europe Transparency & Consent Framework policies (refer here ).
Vendors(UMP) following the TCF Policies specifically perform the following:
Update their softwares for use by Publishers and Vendor-partners, such as scripts and tags that result in personal data processing or the storing and/or accessing of information on user devices in order to:

• Respect such choices e.g. by not storing or accessing information on a user’s device without having obtained consent.

• Ensure they don’t transmit personal data to another Vendors unless the receiving Vendor as a legal basis for processing.

Hence the request for changing defaults could be difficult to implement.
 

This message is in relation to case "ref:!00D1U01174p.!5004Q02tIs1r:ref" (ADR-00233544)

Thanks,
 

Mobile Ads SDK Team

 

[Alex Cretney]

Thanks for the quick response. To be honest though i don't understand the difficulty or why this should be a touchy area. 

Setting the default to 'on' isn't in any way compelling or tricking the user into providing consent. They still have the option to unselect it. Its the most visible option right at the top of the screen. They retain full control over their privacy choices. At the same time, the work of us developers (who provide so much value to your platforms) is respected by giving us the ability to monetise our work with untargeted ads. 

There won't be a single user who is going to open that dialog, switch option 1 to on and then select 'Confirm Choices'... They won't understand what they've done or why it was necessary. The result of the current setup is that users are going to 'accidentally' un-consent to ALL ads if they so much as look at the 'Manage Options' dialog.

This probably wouldn't be the intention of well intentioned moral users who understand that without that minimal level of consent (which costs them nothing), the developer is now basically being forced to pay to support them. 

Kind regards

Alex

[Bence Menyhárt]

Hi Alex!

I think the Programmatic and Limited ads will address some of these issue.
Limited ads - Google AdMob Help

You would still need to find out if a user consented to everything to show the most "profitable" personalized ads but at least the above issue would be handled automatically by allowing goggle to always serve some type of ad.
(I'm also in your boot but that is how I see it now do correct me though if you see it the other way. And ofc I would also support Admob sdk based TFC parsing for giving us valuable information about the type of consent the user gave us)

~Menyus

[Alex Cretney]

Hi Menyus, 

Thanks for the info. I've been in and out of this forum for quite a while and unfortunately, though 'limited ads' sounds like a solution, i have yet to hear from anybody that has ever been served a limited ad. I think it's a red herring to shut down complaints unless something has changed in the last few months. Perhaps you can get something from it through setting up mediation, but this is impossible for me as a Flutter developer. 

I did manage to find a solution to the 'level of consent' problem though. (It's astonishing that the google UMP doesn't just provide this information) but you can setup a custom parser to work in conjunction with iabtcf_consent_info package 

There is a useful discussion on it here incase it helps 

https://stackoverflow.com/questions/63415275/obtaining-consent-with-the-user-messaging-platform-android

Good luck fellow developer! We're on the extinction list! 

[Bence Menyhárt]

Just monitoring and indeed no limited ads are served...