If user denies consent it isn't possible to serve non-personalised ads, instead ads don't show at all

[Luke Taylor]

I am using the google_mobile_ads: ^3.0.0 plugin.

I have followed the documentation at https://developers.google.com/admob/flutter/eu-consent to add EU consent to my app using the Google UMP SDK.

The app is successfully collecting consent or no consent from the user.

If the user consents to personalised ads, then the ads show in my app.

If the user denies consent, then no ads show. There appears to be no way to detect that the user has not consented and then serve only non-personalised ads. This is how the web behaves.

The debug log shows:

I/Ads ( 1433): Ad failed to load : 3

[Mobile Ads SDK Forum Advisor]

Hi Luke,

If the consent requirements for personalized ads are not met, Google will serve non-personalized ads when all of the following criteria are met:

• The end user grants Google consent to:
  • Store and/or access information on a device (Purpose 1)
• Legitimate interest (or consent, where a publisher configures their CMP to request it) is established for Google to:
  • Select basic ads (Purpose 2)
  • Measure ad performance (Purpose 7)
  • Apply market research to generate audience insights (Purpose 9)
  • Develop and improve products (Purpose 10)

Detailed information can be found here: https://support.google.com/admob/answer/9760862?hl=en&ref_topic=9756841
 

This message is in relation to case "ref:_00D1U1174p._5004Q2o6rh1:ref"

Thanks,
 

Mobile Ads SDK Team

 

[Luke Taylor]

Thank you for the reply.

Realistically, no user is going to analyse and respond to all of the options. They will either give consent or deny consent. Which means there will be virtually no situations when Google will serve non-personalised ads.

Please can I ask two further questions:

1. If the user denies consent, is it true that Google will not serve any ads? Or could/should Limited ads be served?
2. Is this change of behaviour also happening for Google ads on web (as well as mobile)? So, in the future, if I'm on a website that is serving me Google ads, and I deny consent, I won't see ads at all, not even non-personalised ones (I'm in the UK)?

Luke

[Mobile Ads SDK Forum Advisor]

Hi Luke,

Please see our response below.

If the user denies consent, is it true that Google will not serve any ads? Or could/should Limited ads be served?

• As mentioned before, there are conditions that needs to meet before Google will served non-personalized ads. If the said conditions were not met, you will likely get a no fill error response from the ad-server

Is this change of behaviour also happening for Google ads on web (as well as mobile)? So, in the future, if I'm on a website that is serving me Google ads, and I deny consent, I won't see ads at all, not even non-personalised ones (I'm in the UK)?

• I'm afraid that our team cannot comment on this as this is out of our scope. With that, we would recommend checking this with AdSense team: https://support.google.com/adsense/?hl=en#topic=3373519. 

[Alex Cretney]

Im somewhat confused by this... 

As developers we invest very significant time into projects on the basis that there'll be some sort of compensation down the road. In some cases we're entirely dependant on Ad-Revenue. My interpretation of the above thread is that users can effectively 'opt-out' of ads of ANY sort whilst using our apps for free? Do i have that right? 

Having spent almost a year developing my first app, i consider exposure to some ads (personalised or otherwise) is a 'condition of use'. We surely have to get SOMETHING out of our efforts or our livelihoods are under threat.

My approach would be to simply state on the AppStore listing something to the following effect...

"It is a condition of use, that if you choose to download and use this app, you will be subject to some advertising"

This is exactly the same unwritten contract we see in almost every other walk of life whether it be TV, radio, youtube etc... If you choose to consume the content, you agree to the ads... 

If you present users with a nice easy popup asking "would you prefer this app without ads?" surely 100% of them are going to disable ads?? I certainly would. 

Am i misunderstanding this? It just seems mental. 

[diablins...@gmail.com]

Hi Alex,

the problem comes when Google needs to store cookies in the device to show ads. The new law says that you can't store anything in the device without the user consent. And why google needs to store cookies even for a simple non-personalized ad? Because they are required to fight fraud.

So... no consent = no ads. And explain me how can we make people to consent storing ad cookies in their device. This happened always and people didn't care, but tell them they have to consent now.

Politicians who make laws doesn't care about our apps and work, that's all.

[Mobile Ads SDK Forum Advisor]

Hi,

Thank you for reaching out to us.

With regard to your concern for the consent, if you've followed the documentation at https://developers.google.com/admob/flutter/eu-consent, you can try to use the Forward consent to the Google Mobile Ads SDK (https://developers.google.com/admob/flutter/eu-consent#forward_consent_to_the_google_mobile_ads_sdk) to still get non-personalized ads. As mentioned on the documentation, the default behavior of the Google Mobile Ads SDK is to serve personalized ads. If a user has consented to receive only non-personalized ads, you can configure an AdRequest object with the following code to specify that only non-personalized ads should be requested. Let us know if you have any other concerns.