Get up and running with Cookie Control

Installing Cookie Control

Step 1

Cookie Control uses jQuery. You don't need to have this installed on your site already - the script will check for this. If you DO have it installed, please just check check that you have jQuery version 1.4.4 or later: Cookie Control is not compatible with earlier versions of jQuery.

Step 2

Download the Cookie Control script

Upload it to your site. 

Step 3

Configure Cookie Control, and grab the code it generates for you. Update the path to the location where you've placed the Cookie Control Script.

You may wish to create an include, embed it directly in your pages, or add it to an existing "footer" include for your site. It's entirely up to you.

Either way, the code needs to be within the <body> tag of your page.

Step 4

Apply Cookie Control events to your cookie-dropping scripts. This will ensure that they won't drop cookies unless a user has opted in.

Tidying up: Get rid of unnecessary cookies

Once you've done your cookie audit you'll have a clear idea of what cookies are at work on your site, and what they do. Some of them you may be able to get rid of altogether, without negatively impacting how your site works.

Social Sharing

Some of the worst offenders are social networks such as Facebook and Twitter, whose native sharing snippets drop cookies when users are logged in to those services. In these cases it is always possible to create sharing buttons that don't depend on cookies. For example:

AddThis

To prevent AddThis dropping cookies, add this code to your page, below your AddThis script:

Callbacks

Cookie Control has four handy callbacks that can be used to execute scripts:

  • onAccept: This callback runs ONCE, the FIRST time a user consents to cookies
  • onReady: This callback runs immediately after CookieControl has initialised and displayed its widget, if applicable.
  • onCookiesAllowed: This callback runs after CookieControl has initialised, if cookies are allowed.
  • onCookiesNotAllowed: This callback runs after CookieControl has initialised, if cookies are NOT (yet) allowed.

Tweaking your scripts

Cookie Control allows you to run your analytics, or other scripts with little effort. 

Cookie Contol provides you with two events in the script that you copied from the generator.

The first one is called "onAccept:function(){}" and the second one "onCookiesAllowed:function(){}".

The "onAccept" event fires off the function defined when the user consents to allow cookies. This can be very useful: It that means you don't lose the first visit in your analytics tracking. 

The "onCookiesAllowed" event fires off the function defined every time the user loads the page.

Google Analytics Example

You can use this example to deploy Google Analytics on your site: just add your own analytics code. Using this method you can launch Google Analytics after consent.

Calling your Function

Once you've created your function then you just need to call it from the Cookie Control setup script. Here's an example of how this can be done:

Useful Functions

Cookie Control provides a number of functions that allow you to check if you can set cookies from the rest of your scripts. These are:

  • CookieControl.cookieLawApplies(): This function checks if the cookie Law applies to the user that is accessing the site based on their location.
  • CookieControl.consented(): This function checks that the user has consented to getting cookies.
  • CookieControl.maySendCookies(): This function is a combination of the first two checks. Furthermore, this function will be updated as the law changes to include all the checks that are needed in order to set a cookie and therefore it is the one that is recommended to be used when checking if cookies can be set.
  • CookieControl.reset();: This functions removes the cookies set when the user has given consent and can in effect be used to revoke consent.

Please ensure that the Cookie Control script has loaded before these functions are called.

Including Cookie Control based on the user location

This is now part of the main configuration of Cookie Control. All you need to do is provide the list of countries that you wich Cookie Control to be applied for. That's all!

Hiding Cookie Control after consent

If you want to hide the Cookie Control icon after the user has given consent then modify the onAccept callback as outlined below:

Revoking consent

Although we all hope that our users will opt in and consent to the use of cookies there might be cases where the user will want to revoke that consent. We don't include this functionality by default (users can simply clear their cookies if they want to do this) but you can configure it if this is what you need.

cc-revoke.png
The changes required are quite simple.

First you need to edit the .js file that you have downloaded from the Cookie Control site and search for "I am happy with this". Just after the button tag add the following:

 Then in your HTML template just after your Cookie Control code add the following:

This little script uses one of the Cookie Control functions called "reset()" to remove Cookie Control cookies.

If editing the .js file seems too complicated then you can just download a version that has the Reset Link already built in here. This is just one way that the revoke can be done. You can use the "reset()" method in any way you see fit.

Cookie audits and privacy policy

The simplest way of doing this is using a browser extension. Browser extensions for capturing cookie information and making it available through your browser interface are available for all major browsers. We've got on well using an extension for Firefox, but there are others.

Once you've installed the necessary extension, walk through your site, checking the growing cookie list as you go. As a webmaster you should have a good idea what all of these do. If you don't you may need to consult whoever put your site together.

Make a table consisting of the cookie name, its function, and if you can, its expiry date. It's this data that you need to include in your privacy policy. Make sure that this is all in plain English. You won't won't be helping your users unless you translate the technical-speak.

Remember to include the cookie: "civicAllowCookies"

This is the cookie stored by Cookie Control when a user agrees to have cookies stored on their machine.

If you're looking for sample privacy policies, you could do worse than checking out the ICO's own policy or CIVIC's.

Support

If there's any aspect of Cookie Control that you want help with, if you need assistance deploying it, or have a feature request, please visit the support forum and search for an answer. If you can't find what you're looking for post a question over there and we'll answer as quickly as we can.

Please note that due to client deadlines etc this is the only means by which we can offer free support for Cookie Control.

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