Why do auto-scroll Events ignore User Consent?

Data collection and tags
1

I go to a website. I click “reject all” in the Consent Manager.
All Tags with a “require Consent” flag are subsequently NOT fired. → AS EXPECTED, GOOD.

BUT: Why do the auto-scroll Events still send data to PiwikPro Analytics even if I reject Analytics Consent?
See this example request:

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I assume it because this “collect anonymous data from non-consenting visitors” setting (under Admin → Settings → Privacy is ON?

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I find it bad design when Analytics tools have settings in various places that impact how your JS library works, especially if these places are not talking to each other. Piwik allows you to use Tag Manager for all the tracking logic, but then certain parts of automatic Analytics tracking are under Admin → Settings. And they are completely disconnected from the Consent logic or any other Tag Manager logic etc…

For users of PP TM, this kind of stuff needs to be part of the Piwik PRO tag configuration.

I know GA4 has similar stuff for their “auto-events” where an Admin setting can create additional data layer events - which imho is ill-fated, because non-encapsulated system architecture design that poses all kinds of compliance issues. What events are fired and what is tracked has to be in the domain of the Tag Manager, nowhere else. See also this article: Analytics Tea Break #2: How to Increase your GA4 Conversions 20-Fold without Touching GTM | by Lukas Oldenburg | The Bounce

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2

Hi @loldenburg,

The current automatic scroll tracking solution indeed doesn’t take the consent status into consideration. I will add another feature request for this as it was requested before.

The workaround for now would be to use the manual method:

3

As I said, when I deactivate the checkbox “Collect anonymous data…”, the scroll tracking is also switched off.

The main problem is that a setting whether to track scroll events does not belong in the Admin area, it only belongs into the Tag Manager.

The manual method via the scroll trigger is another place where I have the choice between super-redundant Tags (one per each scroll depth bin with the only difference being the eventAction with the percentage) or lots of Custom Code to calculate the scroll depth dynamically in the tag. How can Piwik offer a scroll event listener and NOT provide the reached scroll depth as a dynamic parameter to the tag?

4

:thinking: It doesn’t turn off on my end. I have to explicitly disable the scroll tracking.

Summary

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My initial impression was that having no option to add a consent type to the automatic page scroll tracking is the main issue here.

Do you mean something like this?
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5

“It doesn’t turn off on my end. I have to explicitly disable the scroll tracking.”
=> Wow, if that is really the case, then PP has a major compliance issue. Not good for a brand that presents itself as “privacy first”.

Do you mean something like this?
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yes. Where / how did you get this? If CUstom Code is the answer, I don’t need to know.

6

It’s one of the built-in variables
About built-in variables | Piwik PRO help center

7

The scroll tags firing shouldn’t really do much. That’s because the main Piwik PRO tracking tag is not added to the website and that means there is no JavaScript Tracking Client that can turn these into tracking requests.

8

Thanks. What is the data layer key for it so I can reuse it?

9

see my initial screenshots again. Those are requests to the PP tracker. Those are no longer happening when I deactivate the checkbox “Collect anonymous data…”. Maybe it was a misunderstanding: I was referrring to the requests, not to the Data Layer Events. I don’t care much about the Data Layer Events, although it would probably be cleaner if those were switched off as well if there is no scroll tracking in the first place.

10

I think it’s only available as a PPTM variable.

Yep, this.

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