Is npa=1 still required when using new UMP SDK for Android?

[Bastiaan van den Berg]

Hello,

I am currently using Google's (deprecated) consent-library to request consent for personalized ads from European users. The documentation specifies that if a user's consent status is already set to PERSONALIZED or NON_PERSONALIZED, you can forward consent to the Google Mobile Ads SDK by provide npa=1 as extra.

Now I want to migrate to the new Unified Messaging Platform SDK for Android. The documentation is pretty straightforward, but it only explains how to get consent, not how to use the consent. Does this mean that when using the new UMP SDK for Android, we no longer have to set the "npa" is "1" when requesting an AdMob ad for a user that did not consent to personalized ads?

Kind regards,

Bastiaan

[Mobile Ads SDK Forum Advisor Prod]

Hi Bastiaan,

Thank you for reaching out to us. I'll raise this to the rest of the team to get their insight as well. I'll update this thread the soonest they provide their feedback.

Regards,

Teejay Wennie Pimentel Mobile Ads SDK Team

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[Bastiaan van den Berg]

Dear Mobile Ads SDK Team,

I was under the impression that my question would be easy to answer, but I haven't heard anything back yet. The only think I want to know is if the following (as described here in legacy documentation):

Bundle extras = new Bundle();
extras.putString("npa", "1");

AdRequest request = new AdRequest.Builder()
    .addNetworkExtrasBundle(AdMobAdapter.class, extras)
    .build();

is still required when using the new UMP SDK for Android?

I assume that this is no longer required, because it is not mentioned anywhere on the UMP SDK documentation page. But I want to be absolutely sure about this,  because I cannot verify if AdMob actually returns non-personalized ads if the user did not consent.

Kind regards,

Bastiaan van den Berg

[Hans Schneider]

I have the same question. I have previously built my own GDPR Optin and want to switch to UMP. I ASSUME the SDK handles this internally (that's kind of the whole point, right), but it would be nice to have this confirmed.

[stevieh...@gmail.com]

I would like this answered too. I need a way to tell whether personalization is on or off so I can show the status in my app.

For example, I have a button in my app:

[ADs settings : Currently set to : non-personalized]

This is not working as we have no way of telling if the user selected "Consent" or "Don't Consent".

[Bastiaan van den Berg]

@stevie: The ConsentInformation.getConsentType() function returns a ConsentType which can be PERSONALIZED, NON_PERSONALIZED, or UNKNOWN. Isn't that what you are looking for?

My question is, if for some user consentType == ConsentType.NON_PERSONALIZED, do I still need to include npa=1 as extra when requesting an AdMob ad? 

[Bastiaan van den Berg]

Dear Mobile Ads SDK team,

I am still waiting for a confirmation that the UMP SDK serves non-personalized ads for users that did not consent, without setting npa=1 in the add request.

Kind regards,

Bastiaan van den Berg

[Bilbo Beutlin]

This is an important question and I think every admob user that uses the ump sdk needs this answer.

[Bastiaan van den Berg]

Dear Mobile Ads SDK team,

Before I migrate to the UMP SDK, I would very much like to have it confirmed that I no longer need to check if an EU user did not consent to personalized ads, and in that case use "npa"="1" when sending an ad request. 

I don't understand why I have to wait for two weeks for this simple confirmation.

Kind regards,

Bastiaan van den Berg

[Bastiaan van den Berg]

Yet again, a week has passed without an answer. Could somebody please confirm that "npa"="1" is no longer required when using the UMP SDK for android?

And if this is not the right place for this question, could you please tell me who I should ask? Thanks.

Kind regards,

Bastiaan van den Berg

[OP]

If I understood correctly, there is a comparison between the consent in the TC string (resulting from the UMP message) and the "npa" field in you ad request, if it exists.

Quote from the documentation:

"If you have set NPA in your ad request, we will look at that and the consent indicated by the TC string and apply the most conservative setting."

https://support.google.com/admanager/answer/9805023?hl=en

So if you do not want to always show non-personalized ads, you could leave out the npa=1 from your ad request.

[Bastiaan van den Berg]

Currently I am using the legacy library. For a given user, I can check if she/he did consent to personalized ads. Only if the user did NOT consent, I included npa=1 in the ad request.

My only question is if I can stop doing that when I use the UMP SDK.

So if you say: 

"So if you do not want to always show non-personalized ads, you could leave out the npa=1 from your ad request."

I take it that npa=1 is indeed no longer needed when using the UMP SDK.

p.s. In the meantime, I decided to give it a try with one of my apps, leading to the issue described in this topic. For that app, no ads are shown at all for users that did not consent, and other developers seem to suffer from this issue. And nobody seems to be able/willing to help out.. So my advice to anyone reading this, don't switch to the UMP SDK yet.

[Mobile Ads SDK Forum Advisor]

In case this is still helpful for anyone, confirming that using the UMP SDK for Android you do not need to set npa=1. The UMP SDK writes the TCF string to shared preferences (related info at https://support.google.com/admob/answer/9760862), and the Google Mobile Ads SDK reads the TCF string on ad requests.

As previously pointed out by OP, per the same help center article above, if both the TCF string and npa are set on a request, the more conservative settings are applied.

Thanks,
Eric, Mobile Ads SDK Team

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