IAB TCF v2.0 errors detected, error 1.1, after setting up UMP/Funding Choices

[Bastiaan van den Berg]

Dear Google Mobile Ads SDK team,

I have set up Funding Choices and integrated the UMP library in my Android app according to the documentation. A day after releasing the app, an error message was displayed on my AdMob console, informing me about "IAB TCF v2.0 errors detected".

The mentioned error code is: 1.1 "Google, as a vendor, is not allowed under consent or legitimate interest." And the given suggestion is: "Confirm whether the user intentionally rejected Google as a vendor, CMP implementation errors have occurred, or there are publisher restrictions."

To be frank, I don't know what that means, nor do I know how to solve it. Could you please give some guidance on what could cause this and how to resolve it?

You will probably say that this is not the right place to ask this question, but then who is? I am really at a loss here, and meanwhile no ads are served to people that did not consent..

Thanks for your help.

Kind regards,

Bastiaan van den Berg

[Mobile Ads SDK Forum Advisor Prod]

Hi Baastian,

Thank you for bringing this issue of no ads showing for those who didn't consent up to us. From the fact that only those who don't consent don't receive ads it seems that you have implemented the UMP SDK correctly in your app.

We can only support SDK implementation. The correct places to find support for consent issues are on the AdMob Forum if you are using AdMob, and Ad Manager Forum if you use Ad Manager. Also, you may find the Funding Choices Help Center helpful for setting up personalized consent messages that help inform users of the consequence of their consent choices.

With that being said, you may find the following pages helpful:

•  Troubleshooting TCF v2.0 implementation
• Help with the EU user consent policy  - there's a description of what happens if user declines consent to cookies
• Mobile In-App CMP API v1.0: Transparency & Consent Framework - on that page there's a description of how an app publisher can find out if enough consent was given to determine how much functionality to expose to user under the heading How do third-party SDKs (Vendors) access the consent information?

Regards,

Aryeh Baker Mobile Ads SDK Team

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[Benj]

Does this answer mean that users that give no consent are supposed to see no ads at all? 

[Mobile Ads SDK Forum Advisor Prod]

Hi Benj,

We can only support Mobile Ads SDK implementation. The correct places to find support for consent issues are on the AdMob Forum if you are using AdMob, and Ad Manager Forum if you use Ad Manager. 

With that being said, in Help with the EU user consent policy  - there's a description of what happens if user declines consent to cookies and that may help you form a conclusion of what consent is needed for which type of ad serving.

[Bastiaan van den Berg]

Dear AdMob SDK team,

As suggested, I posted this question on the AdMod forum, but did not get any response. Also the Funding Choices Help Center does not provide an answer. 

The question that Benj asks is very relevant: "Does this mean that users that give no consent are supposed to see no ads at all?" Can't you inform the Funding Choices team if this is the expected behavior? After all, you are in the same company, and these products seem to be dependent on each other, so I very much hope there is some form of communication between the different parties..

Why are we the ones that are send from here to there and never get any answers. For us it is irrelevant where the failure occurs, bottom line is that your product does not show any ads, while I am pretty sure it should (or soon Google will lose all there ad incomes from European users).

By now, the income for the app were I integrated UMP is starting to drop, so I will revert back to the legacy library, great..

[Mobile Ads SDK Forum Advisor Prod]

Hi Bastiaan,

I work along with Aryeh. I'm sorry to hear that you're having troubles in contacting our Product Support Team. I understand that there is an urgency in your concern. However, they are the appropriate team who can help on you around as this is out of scope to our team.
 
I'm afraid we're left with not much of an option here. I hope you get a response from them soon.

Regards,

Teejay Wennie Pimentel Mobile Ads SDK Team

 

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[stevieh...@gmail.com]

Hi Bastiaan,

I got those error messages when I used the UMP dialog with the "do not consent" button on.
I don't see the the point of "don't consent", I'd probably just put up a quit dialog after that. I can't have
people playing my game for free with no return.

I switched to using the other consent dialog without that option. I think it just had "consent" and "manage options".

I think this error occurs if you try to request ads, or even initialise AdMob before the user has given consent.

The IDFA never shows on iOS - Unless I call the iOS function myself. The Funding Choices SDK says it should happen automatically
but doesn't. Someone is looking into it, but hasn't got back yet.

The documentation should have a table that shows the status of ads for all the different circumstances. 
 
For example:

EEA + no consent = Do not even request ads or init Admob or you get the 1.1 errors (I think). 
EEA + consent = Allow tracking = Init Admob and request ads - fully tracked ads will be provided.
EEA + consent + Don't allow tracking via IFDA = Ads allowed, but will not non-tracked / less targeted so less valuable.

I'm a bit concerned that the whole issue is not being treated with the correct amount of urgency considering iOS 14 is now out.

Steve.
                   



Steve.

[Mobile Ads SDK Forum Advisor Prod]

Hi Steven,

Thank your for all your input.

Regarding when the Funding Choices IDFA message shows, you may refer to this page - https://support.google.com/fundingchoices/answer/9995402 . If the consent form has to show then the IDFA message doesn't show. It could be that this would overwhelm a user with too much info as 3 dialogs would pop up (consent, pre - IDFA Funding Choices message and then the tracking message) before anything happens in the app functionally. If this isn't your preferred pathway for messages, then we would like to hear what you think.

Regarding no consent turning off ads, you may find this page about what consent is required for non personalized ads enlightening. We provide tools to make acquiring consent easier and we will still honor adding NPA = 1 to turn off personalized ads. Note that you may use any system you want to acquire consent from your users.

Regarding how to determine what functionality is offered to users base on how much consent they give you can implement a check on consent before allowing access to functionality based on information offered here -  How do third-party SDKs (Vendors) access the consent information?

Regarding iOS 14, Apple has delayed requiring consent for IDFA as described here - https://developer.apple.com/news/?id=hx9s63c5. This gives developers a little bit of a breather.

Thank you for the table of consent status - I will be bringing this up with my team. You may monitor our TCF Troubleshooter for updates.

Regards,

Aryeh Baker Mobile Ads SDK Team

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[Mobile Ads SDK Forum Advisor Prod]

Hi Steven,

In order to delay app measurement that occurs at initialization of the SDK until consent is obtained you can use this guide.

[stevieh...@gmail.com]

Hi Aryeh,

Thanks for the additional details. I'm not sure which IDFA message you're talking about here:

"If the consent form has to show then the IDFA message doesn't show."

I get that you would not need the "pre-IDFA" message, the problem is that the iOS IDFA tracking dialog never shows.

So currently the app flow is:

EEA : FC consent/manage options dialog -> APP (Note no iOS IDFA tracking message)
Non-EEA : UMP returns "not required" -> APP (Note no IDFA tracking message or pre-IDFA message)

What I would expect:

EEA : FC consent/manage options dialog -> iOS IDFA message-> APP 
Non-EEA : UMP returns "not required" -> FC "pre IDFA message" -> iOS IDFA message ->APP 


No IDFA tracking dialog appears. No pre IDFA message appears for non-EEA users.

I was under the impression that the UMP would automatically trigger the iOS IDFA tracking message via requestTrackingAuthorizationWithCompletionHandler: 

Is this the case? Are my assumptions correct?

The docs are a little ambiguous regarding what the developer is expected to do and what the UMP covers.

Thanks again,

Steve.

[Mobile Ads SDK Forum Advisor Prod]

Hi Steven,

Thank you for asking for the request for further clarification. I tested some setups and this is what I found that works:

1. Delete the preexisting app before new test.
2. ATTrackingManager needs to be called somewhere in app.
3. Info.plist needs a Privacy - Tracking Usage Description key and a non empty message.
4. Consent Status needs a reset.
5. Geography has to be outside of the EU.

The documentation as of now doesn't show these requirements for testing and actually implies you don't need a call to ATTrackingManager or an Info.plist setup, let alone a message too.

I will bring this issue up with my team. You may monitor our Prepare for iOS 14+ Guide and our UMP Guide for updates.

Regards,

[Steven Haggerty]

"ATTrackingManager needs to be called somewhere in app."

Great, that clears things up! 

Thanks for looking into this.

Steve.

[Mobile Ads SDK Forum Advisor Prod]

Hi Steven,

Where you able to get the Funding choices app tracking message to appear?

[Steven Haggerty]

Hi Aryeh.

"Where you able to get the Funding choices app tracking message to appear?" 

I'm not sure what you mean by "Funding choices app tracking message"

As far as I can see there are 3 "dialogs/messages".

1. The Funding Choices "Consent screen". This works fine.

2. The "pre iOS ATT explainer message". Should only be shown on NON-EEA areas : This has never worked.

3. The iOS ATT - This as you explained, has to be done by me explicitly calling ATTrackingManager in my code. This works

and displays our "Privacy - Tracking Usage Description" from the info.plist within the message.

So the only thing now NOT working is the "pre iOS ATT explainer message" for non-EEA areas.

Thanks,

Steve.

[Mobile Ads SDK Forum Advisor Prod]

Hi Steven,

I was able to get the "pre iOS ATT explainer message" to show consistently following these extra undocumented steps:

1. Delete the preexisting app from simulator or device before new test.
2. Call ATTrackingManager somewhere in ViewController.

1. Info.plist needs a Privacy - Tracking Usage Description key and a non empty message.
2. Consent Status needs a reset.
3. Geography has to be outside of the EU.

Please tell let me know if you are able to get the message to show. 

[stevieh...@gmail.com]

Hi Aryeh,

It now all works. :) It turns out that all funding choices IDFA explainer messages were deleted recently. There's a notice on the FC page:

"As a result, we have removed all previously configured IDFA explainer messages. "

Now I've set up a new one, the dialog flow works perfectly:
EEA  - Consent dialog -> IDFA -> APP
Non-EEA  - IDFA explainer -> IDFA ->APP

The only wrinkle is that in order to allow users to change their mind, we need to re-show this flow

from our settings menu in our app.

The EEA consent dialog form will load again fine, but the IDFA explainer returns "form un-available".
Isn't it obligatory to allow the user to change their tracking options within the app? I can open this as

a different bug if you like.

Thanks,

Steve.

 

[Terek Tarek]

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC-CLaGuR5emin0Ac-uUDp3Q

I hope everyone participates. 

[Mobile Ads SDK Forum Advisor Prod]

Hi Steven,

Thanks for all your efforts to clarify. Are you suggesting that Apple is requiring app developers that obtained consent for IDFA usage have to show in app a way to take back consent? There are more powerful tools under settings->privacy_> where you can block all idfa usage requests and take consent away from individual apps. Could you elaborate on the use case? 

[Luis lp]

Does it really work?

I manage to show the forms as expected but if an EEA user clicks the "manage options" button and then "submit" no ads will be shown at all.

All the switches in the form are OFF by default (I really can't understand why)

I would expect that if a user clicks the "manage options" button and the "submit" non personalized ads would be shown but that is not the case.

UMPConsentInformation.sharedInstance.consentType will always be .unknown

I can't use UMP until this gets fixed

[Mobile Ads SDK Forum Advisor Prod]

Hi there,

I work along with Aryeh. Allow me to assist you in this.

As per checking in this thread, have you tried to setup a new funding choices IDFA explainer messages. As mentioned by other publisher (Steven), doing this solves the issue. 

Regards,

Teejay Wennie Pimentel Mobile Ads SDK Team

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[luis...@gmail.com]

I have recreated the IDFA explainer message. NO difference at all.

This is really frustrating guys, just follow your own guide and you will get no ads after clicking "manage options - submit" on EEA.

I expected a fast and efficient solution for such a big problem like this. 

- Documentation is not complete

- Switches on the forms should be ON by default

- Forms don't load the switches status based on the previous selection

- And the most important thing: Ads will not be served if you click "manage options - submit"

[Mobile Ads SDK Forum Advisor Prod]

Hi Luis,

Thank you for responding back.We understand your frustration and will do our best to help with this issue.

In response to your questions.:

• Which information looks to be incomplete? I know that we are in the process of reviewing it now. If you see something that seems incorrect please let us know.
• They are intentionally OFF by default, as this would most likely comply with EEA and GDPR policies. Requiring the need to get consent.
• I would ask if you created a Funding Choice account along with any other AdSense or AdMob account you might have? And if using the same email addresses?
• This one we are looking into more.

Regards,

William Pescherine Mobile Ads SDK Team

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[Luis lp]

Hello, 

- About the documentation: It has already been discussed in this thread, there is nothing about "ATTrackingManager needs to be called somewhere in app." on the docs in order to show the IDFA message.

- About default switches off by design, I think it is an error to make it so easy to decline personalized ads consent. 99% of users don't care if ads are personalized or not but if you can deactivate them just by clicking a button incomes will decrease a lot.

- If a user gives his consent and then he decides to show the form again (or shows it by mistake or just for curiosity) all the switches will be off. It would not even remember the previous consent status.

- I already had an admob account and then I created the funding choices account. I use the same email address on both.

Regards

[Mobile Ads SDK Forum Advisor Prod]

Hi Luis,

Thank you for getting back to us. I've raised this (including the reports and discussion thus far) to the rest of the team for further investigation. I'll update this thread the soonest they provide their feedback.

Regards,

Teejay Wennie Pimentel Mobile Ads SDK Team

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[Luis lp]

Great, thanks for the update. 

[Mobile Ads SDK Forum Advisor]

Hi all,

It's been a while, but I figured I'd share an update here for posterity on the "ATTrackingManager needs to be called somewhere in app." point. When using the UMP SDK, ATTrackingManager does not need to be called in the app, but the AppTrackingTransparency framework does need to be linked in your project.  https://developers.google.com/admob/ump/ios/quick-start#app_tracking_transparency shows the steps for that.

Thanks,
Eric, Mobile Ads SDK Team

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