New Consent and Bot Management features for Cloudflare Zaraz

Managing consent online can be challenging. After you’ve figured out the necessary regulations, you usually need to configure some Consent Management Platform (CMP) to load all third-party tools and scripts on your website in a way that respects these demands. Cloudflare Zaraz manages the loading of all of these third-party tools, so it was only natural that in April 2023 we announced the Cloudflare Zaraz CMP: the simplest way to manage consent in a way that seamlessly integrates with your third-party tools manager.

As more and more third-party tool vendors are required to handle consent properly, our CMP has evolved to integrate with these new technologies and standardization efforts. Today, we’re happy to announce that the Cloudflare Zaraz CMP is now compatible with the Interactive Advertising Bureau Transparency and Consent Framework (IAB TCF) requirements, and fully supports Google’s Consent Mode v2 signals. Separately, we’ve taken efforts to improve the way Cloudflare Zaraz handles traffic coming from online bots.

Earlier this year, Google announced that websites that would like to use AdSense and other advertising solutions in the European Economic Area (EEA), the UK, and Switzerland, will be required to use a CMP that is approved by IAB Europe, an association for digital marketing and advertising. Their Transparency and Consent Framework sets guidelines for how CMPs should operate. Since March 2024, the Cloudflare Zaraz CMP is compliant with these guidelines, and Zaraz users in Europe can use Google’s advertising products without any restrictions.

Since the IAB TCF requirements can make the consent modal a little complex for users, we have made this compliance mode an opt-in feature. See the official documentation for information on how to enable it.

Another new requirement from Google was the need to send “Consent Signals”. These signals are part of what is also known as “Consent Mode”, and later, Consent Mode v2. Together with each event sent to Google Analytics and Google Ads, they tell the Google servers about the consent status of the current visitor – did they agree to have their data used for personalized advertising? Did they accept cookies? These and other questions are answered by Consent Mode v2, telling the Google servers how to treat the data it receives.

Consent Mode v2 usually requires setting two values for each consent category – a default value and an updated one. The default value represents the consent status (granted or denied) a certain category (e.g. using cookies) has before the user has submitted their personal preferences. Usually, and especially within the EU, the default value would be `denied`. Once the user submits their preferences, Consent Mode v2 sends an additional “updated” value that represents the choice the user made.

Implementing Consent Mode v2 is quick and easy with Cloudflare Zaraz, although the specific implementation depends on your CMP. Examples, including integration with the Cloudflare Zaraz CMP, are available in our official documentation.

We believe that better standardization around online consent benefits everyone, and we are glad to be working on tools that respect users' privacy and improve online user experience.

We also recently integrated better Bot Management support within Cloudflare Zaraz. You often want crawlers to be able to access your website, but you don’t want them to trigger your analytics and conversion pixels. Using the Bot Management feature in the Cloudflare Zaraz Settings page allows you to fine tune which requests will make it to Cloudflare Zaraz and which ones will be skipped. Since Zaraz pricing is based on the total number of Zaraz Events, this can also be useful if you want more control over your Cloudflare Zaraz costs, ensuring you will not be paying for events triggered by bots. Like all other Cloudflare Zaraz features, these new features are also available to users on all plans, including the free plan. For us, it is part of making sure that everyone can benefit from a faster, safer, and more private way to manage third parties online. If you haven’t started using Cloudflare Zaraz already, now is a great time. Go to the Cloudflare dashboard and set it up in just a few clicks.