How we can implement GDPR using User Messaging Platform SDK, without affecting income from Europe?

[yanchen...@gmail.com]

Currently, by using the already deprecated Google Mobile Ads Consent SDK, users in Europe can have 3 choices.

1. Get personalised ads
   
2. Get non-personalised ads
3. Pay to remove ads
   
   

We are satisfied with such a way, because we are able to generate income from every Europe user, either they are paying us or not.

We would like to migrate to Google recommended User Messaging Platform SDK. After testing, to our surprise, we find out there are only 2 choices offered to Europe users

1. Agree to consent. Get ads (I am not sure whether they are getting personalised ads or non-personalised ads)
   
2. Close the form (Tap on top right) to not agree consent. User will not get any ads?!
   
   

From my gathered information ( https://stackoverflow.com/questions/69254914/connection-between-consent-request-and-google-admob-to-show-personalized-or-non ), if a Europe user do not click on "Consent", he will not get either personalised ads and non-personalised ads. Hence, he can enjoy ads-free experience, without being a paid user.

I can foresee if we role out such a change, a lot Europe users will not agree to consent. As an outcome,

1. We will not generate any income from Europe users
2. We will not getting in-app purchase (to remove ads) income from Europe users
   
   

This is a business disaster to us 🤯 We will not able to generate any income from Europe users.

Do you have any experience in implementing GDPR using User Messaging Platform SDK? Do you have any idea how we can do it properly, without severely impact income from Europe?

Thank you.

[Haydo]

You can remove the "Close (do not consent)" button in the Admob messaging settings. This way the users would have to select "Manage options" and deselect all the options in order to not consent.

If they select "Manage options" and deselect everything and accept, then you can check in the Shared Preferences of your app to see if they consented or not and then restrict some or all of the app and provide an option for them to pay for the ad-free version or reset their consent preferences.

Have a look at the answer here for information on what consent information is saved to the Shared Preferences: https://stackoverflow.com/questions/69307205/mandatory-consent-for-admob-user-messaging-platform

[Mobile Ads SDK Forum Advisor]

Hello,

Thank you for reaching out to us.

By default, if the user has not yet been prompted with the consent form, they will be served personalized ads. However, once the user has been prompted and opts out, they will only be served non-personalized ads. If they do consent, then personalized ads will continue to be served.

To answer your concerns:

• Agree to consent. Get ads (I am not sure whether they are getting personalised ads or non-personalised ads)

• • The user will be served personalized ads until they opt out and they will be served non-personalized ads.

• Close the form (Tap on top right) to not agree consent. User will not get any ads?!

• • Closing the consent form does not mean that the user did not agree and will not receive ads. The UMP SDK will assume that the user has not opted out of being served personalized ads and therefore will still be served personalized ads.

The in-app purchase implementation must be handled with your own message prompt instead of the UMP SDK.

Feel free to reach out to us if you have any further concerns or inquiries.
 

This message is in relation to case "ref:_00D1U1174p._5004Q2mBX1O:ref"

Thanks,
 

Mobile Ads SDK Team

[Mobile Ads SDK Forum Advisor]

Hello Haydo,

Thank you for the additional input. Feel free to reach out to us if you have any concerns or inquiries regarding Mobile Ads SDK implementation.
 

This message is in relation to case "ref:_00D1U1174p._5004Q2mBjCZ:ref"

Thanks,
 

Mobile Ads SDK Team

[Andreas]

> Closing the consent form does not mean that the user did not agree and will not receive ads. The UMP SDK will assume that the user has not opted out of being served personalized ads and therefore will still be served personalized ads.

What are you even talking about? As everyone else in this thread has stated, the option for the close button in the AdMob configuration is explicitly labeled "Close (do not consent)", so what you are stating here is provably false (and if it wasn't, it surely would be a breach of the GDPR on your end).

For what it is worth, it is also wrong to state that everyone "opting out" will be shown non-personalized ads. It is more likely to configure consent in a way that results in no ads at all being shown than in a way that results in non-personalized ads.

[yanchen...@gmail.com]

What if, user goes to "Manage options" and deselect all the options in order to not consent?

In that case, is it no ads will be shown?

Since, there is a set of complicated rules, to determine what is the ads outcome, may I strongly suggest, the SDK can provide an API function, which will output what type of ads are allowed to shown.

For instance, the API function can provide the following output

1. Personalized ads
2. Non-personalized ads
3. No ads shown because user does not consent

By knowing such an outcome, app developer can prevent app users from accessing paid features/ paid content, and prompt them to either

1. Perform in-app purchase or in-app subscription to remove ads
   
2. Agree to consent, to show personalized ads or non-personalized ads

Current SDK doesn't provide such a capability.

Thank you.

[Mobile Ads SDK Forum Advisor]

Hi,

Thank you for your response.

With regard to your concern, if users choose to not consent at all, then the ads that will display will be non-personalized ads. However, as per this article (https://support.google.com/admob/answer/9760862?hl=en&sjid=2418371235660772237-AP), for non-personalized ads, consent for cookies or mobile identifiers is still required because non-personalized ads still use cookies or mobile identifiers to combat fraud and abuse, for frequency capping, and for aggregated ad reporting. If consent is missing for Google for Purpose 1 in the TC string, Google will drop the ad request and no ads will be served. Kindly note that the default serving of ads is personalized ads.

[ath...@gmail.com]

Thank you for the explanation.

When / under what circumstances will consent be missing for Google for Purpose 1 in the TC string? If I obtain consent with the Google UMP solution, is there a case that consent for Purpose 1 will be missing (no matter what the user choses)?

In the tests I did with the UMP sdk (version 2), when I do not consent, I do not get any ads and in the logcat I see that Admob returns error code 3 (no fill). Does this mean that consent for Purpose 1 is missing?

[Mobile Ads SDK Forum Advisor]

Hello,

With regards to preventing missing consent for Purpose 1, a good way of doing this is to limit app functionality until the user consents. If the user does refuse consent, it's up to your implementation on how much are you going to limit the app's functionality. You are unable to obtain this consent without the user's deliberate input.

The circumstances where consent for Purpose 1 will be missing in the TC string would be either that the user has not yet been prompted or the user did not consent whether or not your using UMP SDK. 

With that, if you do not have Purpose 1 in the TC string, you will not be served ads. In line with our existing EU User Consent policy, consent for cookies or mobile identifiers is required for both personalized and non-personalized ads. For non-personalized ads, consent for cookies or mobile identifiers is still required because non-personalized ads still use cookies or mobile identifiers to combat fraud and abuse, for frequency capping, and for aggregated ad reporting. If consent is missing for Google for Purpose 1 in the TC string, Google will drop the ad request and no ads will be served.

[ath...@gmail.com]

Thank you.

So if the user is prompted with the UMP SDK, is there a way that the consent for Purpose 1 will be missing? That is, can the user cause this based on this selections on the dialog? A simple Yes/No answer is sufficient.

Also, how can we check if we have consent for Purpose 1?

[Mobile Ads SDK Forum Advisor]

Hello,

Thank you for responding back. Allow me to raise your concern to a wider team to provide precise insight. I'll let you know the soonest I hear back from them.

[Mobile Ads SDK Forum Advisor]

Hello,

Thank you for inquiry. To answer the question about ads related to no consent, in the absence of consent a user can still receive ads such as limited ads. This may inherently result in a no fill. 

For being able to tell what type of ads a user consents for, the UMP SDK writes the TCFString, which is comprised of many bits that can no longer be translated into a single boolean for "personalization". However, you can read the TC String per the spec and use that to proceed with how you want your app to function.

Thanks,
Justin

ref:_00D1U1174p._5004Q2mBX1O:ref