Consent Mode

Consent mode is a mechanism that changes a tracking tool's behavior according to the user's consent choice: with consent it collects fully, without consent collection is limited or switched off.

Consent mode is a step beyond obtaining consent: instead of merely storing the user's choice, it wires that choice to the tool's live behavior. The term is best known in the market through Google's implementation, where consent mode can, rather than stopping entirely, send a limited amount of aggregated, anonymous data. But that very point is contested: “limited collection without explicit consent” is, to some regulators, still collection. For a first-party tool that does not sell data and sets no third-party cookies, the risk level that Google's consent mode addresses is lower to begin with — but that does not mean “no consent needed”; informing the user is still required.