Using Termageddon for Privacy Compliance – Best Practices

You want to make sure your site is compliant with privacy laws. Here’s how you can best use Termageddon and geolocation tools to help your site stay compliant.

Video Transcript

David: Dave, you have the next questions about my favorite topic, Termageddon.

Dave: Yeah, yeah. So, we’ve got a client that’s got to do something because right now, they’re violating stuff. So, I’m wondering, from your perspective on Termageddon, if you’ve got the geolocation plugin in there, does that alleviate your concerns about showing what needs to be shown to the right people based on their location?

David: Right. So, I’m not a lawyer, but have you reviewed the criteria by which a client has to put up notices for this? In some states, for example, California, you make this much money from this many visitors. So, does this website qualify for that?

Dave:  Certain things, yeah.

David: I love the team at Termageddon. I think they’re good people. But remember, not everybody has to comply. And we need to really make sure that’s the case before we do this because it works. So, if you’re going to use Termageddon, which is a good solution, the only way I would use it is with the geolocation.

Dave: Okay. That’s what I was thinking. That’s why I brought it up.

David: Yeah. Yeah. Other solutions, I like iubenda, do that out-of-box automatically. In my experience, iubenda lets a little more data squeeze through. I think it has to do with the difference between an American lawyer and a European lawyer. The iubenda team is European, and they’re much more like, we’re going to comply with the law. But American lawyers are so scared of breaking the law they err on the side of less data. And so, in my experience, without a quantifiable baseline, I think I’ve been able to let more data get by than with Termageddon. But this is why GA4 is so important: because it fills the gaps with machine learning. Right? And help you understand the missing data. Before I’d implement this, I would have a conversation with the client, setting expectations that this will work and you will have less visibility. I just want you to know next month will suck, but we’re going to baseline it, and we’re going to compare month to month and then year over year. And by a year from now, because we’ve done SEO and other things to promote your site, we’re going to be better than we were this year. But next month’s going to look really bad because we actually are getting less traffic.

Dave: Yeah.

David: But the good news is we’re complying with the law.

Dave: Well, when you say we’re getting less traffic, we’re recording less traffic.

David: Right. Yeah, we’re recording less traffic and recording less conversion sales, whatever those might be.

Dave: Right. Assuming all of the data that you’re providing to the client comes from Google Analytics.

David: Well, so if you’re not using Google Analytics, theoretically, Termageddon or whatever solution you do should pause that too.

Dave: Well, what I’m saying is that we’re providing other data, like sales data.

David: Right.

Dave: We’re looking at the quote forms that have been filled out.

David: Right, right.

Dave: We’re looking at those actual things. We’re looking at email opt-ins.

David: Right.

Dave: Well, those things are like separate from…

David: Right. Yeah. We will know, based on their e-commerce solution, how much they sell. We just don’t know from what channel, as accurately. If you’re doing marketing, you want to know that your channel delivered this. We can report the bottom line. You got a hundred email signups last week or last month. We don’t know where they came from as well. We have some ideas.

Dave: So that’s a good point. WooCommerce is starting to track your source. So, you can see that now, according to what they say. They say if it’s coming from direct or search or a couple of other things. How good that is, I have no idea.

David: But it’s all about how and in the opt-in. And so, theoretically, these systems like Termageddon should be protecting privacy, and if WooCommerce is providing the data, are they breaking privacy?

Dave: I don’t know that yet.

David: I don’t know that either. But what’s the difference between Google Analytics doing it and WooCommerce doing it?

Dave: I don’t know.

David: They’re both first parties. Right?

Dave: Yeah.

David: On both, you have to opt in to be tracked. They’re probably both using cookies.

Dave: Oh yeah. Yeah.

David: So, if you’re not careful, you still end up breaking the law.

Dave: Yeah.

David: So that’s why a system like Termageddon or iubenda, which shuts down the systems until you opt-in, is a good solution. And it’s up to those solutions to monitor what potentially could be tracked in order to protect its clients. So, we need to make sure that these solutions are kept up to date.

Dave: Right.

David: Okay, cool.

Dave: Very good.