This article explains what are third-party cookies and how to block third-party cookies automatically on your WordPress website. We will be using the GDPR Cookie Consent plugin to auto-block third-party cookies on your website.
Do third-party cookies make it hard for you to comply with major privacy laws like GDPR and CCPA? Worry not; we are here to help you save from the trouble of third-party cookies.
With a simple plugin installed on your WordPress website, you will be able to block third-party cookies automatically.
Having said that, let’s get started.
Third-party cookies are cookies that are placed on a visitor’s browser by domains other than the one they are visiting. They are used for tracking user activity on the website and use it for advertising purposes.
Say, for instance, you searched for a blog about Motorcycle riding gears for monsoon and then you visited Facebook and saw ads for Motorcycle riding gears. This is caused by Facebook cookies on the blog. The cookies will track your activities and preferences and use that information for advertising.
Find examples of third-party cookies on CookieSearch, an extensive database of 100,000+ cookies.
First-party cookies and third-party cookies are small pieces of text that carry information regarding website visitors. Both are commonly used to track site visitors’ activity and preferences. Their purpose for collecting information is what differentiates them.
First-party cookies collect information from website visitors to improve the user experience by saving the preferences and settings. Whereas third-party cookies are loaded by other domains to collect user information for third parties. They commonly use this information for targeted advertising.
Third-Party Cookies and Data Privacy
As mentioned above, third-party cookies collect information from website visitors for advertisers and data brokers. This information is commonly used for marketing and analytical purposes.
Selling the information for advertising is not just the only issue with third-party cookies. Researchers at Kaspersky discovered trojans that can steal information from browser cookies and get into website visitors’ social media accounts. Many new cookie laws were introduced in order to prevent the security risks of cookies and protect the privacy of users.
We have a cookie compliance plugin that can help you with automatically blocking cookies on your WordPress website. The plugin also enables you to comply with major cookie laws like GDPR and CCPA. It can be used to create a cookie consent banner for your WordPress website. You can also create a cookie policy for your website using the template with this plugin.
So it is completely an all-in-one cookie compliance plugin for WordPress websites.
The below steps will guide you through the setup process of automatically blocking cookies on your website.
Step 1: Plugin Installation
After purchasing the premium version, download the plugin installation file from the download section of your My Account page.
Install and activate the plugin on your WordPress dashboard. Refer to our article if you need help in plugin installation and activation.
Step 2: Block cookies from scripts
Cookies from the following third-party scripts can be blocked with this plugin.
- Google Analytics
- Facebook Pixel
- Google Tag Manager
- Hotjar Analytics
- Google Publisher Tag
- Youtube Embed
- Vimeo Embed
- Google Maps
- AddThis Widget
- ShareThis widget
- Twitter Widget
- SoundCloud Embed
- SlideShare Embed
- LinkedIn Widget
- Instagram Embed
- Pinterest Widget
- Google Adsense
- Hubspot Analytics
- Matomo Analytics
- Google Recaptcha
Go to GDPR Cookie Consent > Script blocker > Scripts from your WordPress dashboard. This will take you to the Manage script blocking page. Enable the corresponding service to block cookies from them.
For example, if you want to block cookies from Google Analytics, enable the toggle switch corresponding to Google Analytics.
Step 3: Block cookies from plugins
Go to the Plugins tab from the Manage Script Blocking page. Enable the toggle switch corresponding to the plugin to block cookies from the plugin. The plugins that are marked as inactive on your website have either not been installed or are not activated.
Under GDPR Cookie Consent > Cookie Categories, you may choose one of the predefined categories or add a new category.
Conclusion
You can give your users granular control over the types of cookies they accept or reject using the plugin we discussed in this article. The plugin also helps you add a cookie consent banner to your website. This is the only plugin you need for cookie compliance with major privacy laws like GDPR and CCPA.
To learn more about adding a cookie popup to your website, refer to this article.
Hopefully, you now understand what third-party cookies are and how to block them automatically. Do you have any questions? Please feel free to ask in the comments section.
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