Pixel Opt In : EU Privacy Compliance & GDPR

[blindpenguin]

Hello there,

i just got my new terms & conditions and was informed, that Facebook Pixel needs an opt in according to german law. Just like the european cookie notice. It isn't allowed to track anything unless the customer agrees to it.

Are there settings or something like that available for it?

Thanks

[mengyingdu]

Hi @blindpenguin and @crudolf,

To confirm if I understood correctly, you want to opt-out (not to track user information by pixel), but still using plugin to sync product and manage your business on Facebook page, is that correct?

Thank you.

[blindpenguin]

The website visitor needs to be able to opt-in. If i let facebook track users without their explicit consent, then there is the possibility to receive a cease-and-desist warning. It's only about the Pixel functionality. Everything else is fine.

One possibility could be to show a modal or notification bar. Ideally with customizeable text. Only if the visitor clicks on "yes" or "i agree", then tracking is allowed.

There is a huge post on linkedin about this, where the legal stuff is explained in detail: The regulatory pitfalls of the Facebook Pixel

[mengyingdu]

Hi @blindpenguin and @crudolf,

Thanks for flag this. I will mark this as feature request and forward your legal concern to our pixel team.

Thank you.

[dmitridr]

Hello,

You are correct. Our plugin did pass our own legal team and they noted the same thing. We do advise you during the setup of our plugin to seek out ways to provide this notice to users in the EU, though it's easy to miss.

Unfortunately our plugin does not provide a consent notice in it's current functionality, but there are wordpress plugins that do provide this functionality out there, and I'd encourage you to explore using those and seeing if they can be customized to cover the case of the Facebook pixel as well.

For example just a few: https://wordpress.org/plugins/uk-cookie-consent/ https://wordpress.org/plugins/eu-cookie-law/ https://wordpress.org/plugins/hayona-cookies/

I don't think we will ever get around to implementing this notice in our own plugin, but I will leave this open for others to jump in and recommend potential solutions (or perhaps send us a pull request).

[dmitridr]

Just flagging, we are thinking about adding opt-out functionality based on how many users would be affected. It seems it's a great deal more than we originally thought, and it's affecting all of our plugins, not just WooCommerce. We're having some internal discussions now, I'll update if there's any news.

[dmitridr]

Hello All,

I have updates on this issue from the broader Facebook org on GDPR. Specific to the FB pixel, Facebook is pursuing a solution at the user level that will require very little action for businesses who installed the pixel. There will be no need to remove the pixel, and the requirements to provide notice to users will be largely the same as they are now.

I'm not allowed to give out any details about this solution at this time, but when it becomes public I'll update this thread and close it.

www.facebook.com/business/GDPR has more information about our general policy here.

[addedlovely]

Hi Dmitri,

Any update on this.

Thanks,

Ian.

[dmitridr]

Hi Ian,

Nothing concrete. We are exploring different solutions for compliance and there's lots of internal discussion. An update of the plugin may be required to be compliant. We should have further clarity about this closer to the GDPR deadline.

[michaelbourne]

Wouldn't the plugin legally need opt-in functionality, where the pixel tracking code isn't enqueued on the front end of the site unless the visitor has given explicit permission to do so?

Maybe a better solution would be a simple filter that allowed us to conditionally enqueue the tracking code ourselves, based on our own opt-in implementation. There's little need for multiple plugins having their own notifications, when you can wrap it up into one on your own site and handle your tracking pixels via custom code.

[addedlovely]

Rummaging through the source, found this filter 'facebook_for_woocommerce_integration_pixel_enabled':

add_filter('facebook_for_woocommerce_integration_pixel_enabled', '__return_false');

[scrobbleme]

Same here, we just need the sync as the pixel needs user opt-in.

[dmitridr]

Hi All,

Regarding legal concerns, see the image I posted earlier of the pixel step, which links to this page. I think our GDPR policy, www.facebook.com/business/GDPR, has also been updated.

As @addedlovely said, that filter can be used to build your own opt-in solutions, but we will not be taking action on this to implement opt-in behavior. However, we welcome your pull requests if you need additional filters/features to facilitate building those solutions.

I would also look into using PixelYourSite which is compatible with our plugin, they may have an opt-in solution, and they do use the above filter.

[scrobbleme]

@dmitridr Do I understand your last post right?

• Disabling the pixel won't be implemented into the plugin?
• Users should implement their own solutions?

Obviously this is not a good "solution", as this makes it quite hard for users to use this plugin. Not everyone is a developer and can implement a custom solution. It is also not good to "force" opt-in plugin developers to specifically target this plugin.

• At least their should be a simple "generic" solution, which allows enabled/disabling the pixel with "generic" opt-in plugins. Most plugins offer the ability to enable some Javascript, when consent is given. So some way to disable the pixel with Javascript would be nice.

As you can imagin the opt-in rate will be about 0%. So for most users a checkbox to just disable the pixel would be the most easiest way.

[LuciStan]

Hi,

For the avoidance of doubt, is Facebook operating as a data controller or a data processor with regards to the Pixel application?

Thanks, Luci

[dmitridr]

@scrobbleme

Yes I think your understanding is mostly correct: (1) It's already possible using the filter mentioned above, but regarding a UI, yes we won't build it. (2) Yes.

The filter given above does allow enabling/disabling the pixel, the line pasted by @addedlovely can be used to disable the pixel with the WP plugin editor. But as you say disabling won't work through JS, we're happy to review your pull request to add that functionality. If you send us a pull request for a checkbox to disable the pixel... we would be happy to consider that as well.

@LuciStan My opinion as a dev : FB is mostly a data controller, I imagine this applies to the pixel as well. I would encourage you to read FB's official stance and draw your own conclusions though, there may be something I'm missing.

[sanderkie]

Is there a way we can add the suggested line to the Child-Theme? Am I correct that you would need to create folders similar to the plugin folder which is similar to the Facebook plugin. And then add .... . php file with the mentioned code?

add_filter('facebook_for_woocommerce_integration_pixel_enabled', '__return_false');

(for security reasons I have WP editor disabled but can access via secure FTP)

[scrobbleme]

@sanderkie You can just add it to your functions.php. Maybe set the priority a little higher:

add_filter('facebook_for_woocommerce_integration_pixel_enabled', '__return_false', 20);

[bweston92]

So do we need to ask for consent to use the pixel or not? The documents in the links provided aren't simple enough.

@dmitridr said: "Specific to the FB pixel, Facebook is pursuing a solution at the user level that will require very little action for businesses who installed the pixel. There will be no need to remove the pixel, and the requirements to provide notice to users will be largely the same as they are now."

Is this still the case?

[pronebird]

Hi, sorry for posting this question here, but do you know if there is a repository for Facebook plugin for WordPress. Exactly the same problem with GDPR, had to disable it everywhere on my websites.

[dmitridr]

Update: For any devs following this thread, some developer guidance on how to disable the pixel upon constent / lack of consent. https://developers.facebook.com/docs/facebook-pixel/events-advanced-use-cases/v3.0

@pronebird If you mean the Facebook Pixel Plugin for Wordpress, then no, there isn't, the team is building that plugin is doing so closed source. We used to have it open source in this repo before, but we had to split it out. I'll convey your feedback to that team.

@bweston92 Unfortunately the company chose not to pursue such a solution fully for now. Users have been given control to opt-in/opt-out of the pixel data being used or processed on Facebook itself, but this only applies to Facebook users.

I can't tell you if you should or shouldn't ask for consent to use the pixel. Recommend talking with a lawyer, or erring on the side of asking (or disabling, as many in this thread have done), at least until the effect of GDPR is more clear.

[mengyingdu]

Update:

We got a pull request to Adding filter to Pixel init for injection of fbq(consent, revoke) (GDPR). Check changelog for details.

Please upgrade to v1.9.5

[shtefcs]

Hi guys, any way we can automatically/programatically turn off Facebook Pixel using this plugin? https://wordpress.org/plugins/gdpr-cookie-compliance/

This is one of the best GDPR plugins, and its free.

I think someone need to work on it, so we don't neede manually to place facebook pixel code in that plugin, and lose auto sync option which this Facebook for WooCommerce have.

[amitramani]

@dmitridr @addedlovely Thank you for this valuable tidbit. Once I added the filter, the fbevents.js and corresponding FB pixel code is no longer invoked. I hope the product sync functionality will stay intact!

[fabiograsso]

I use Iubenda Cookie Solution, they have a plugin for WordPress that handle the cookie.

I need to just add <!--IUB-COOKIE-BLOCK-START--> before Facebook Pixel script and <!--IUB-COOKIE-BLOCK-END--> at the end.

So basically I need to change all the scripts generated by "Facebook for Woocommerce" in order to add that code.

At the moment I changed the code on facebook-commerce-pixel-event.php, but that's not a definitive solutions because it will be changed everytime I update a plugin.

Do you have any suggestion on how to put that prefix and suffix code? Is there any hook for put code before and after Facebook for Woocommerce scripts?

Thanks

[fabiograsso]

Is there a way to: disable loading of Pixel scripts, but keep the Pixel action like "add to cart", "checkout", and so on?

My idea is: I remove the Pixel script using add_filter('facebook_for_woocommerce_integration_pixel_enabled', '__return_false');, then I will load the Pixel script after the user has accepted the cookie policy.

But when I use add_filter('facebook_for_woocommerce_integration_pixel_enabled', '__return_false'); I lost all the Pixel events.

It would be nice to disable only the Pixel loading, but keep the fbq actions.

Any suggestion?

[emporio3]

Hi Fabio, here the same problem, have you solved? Thanks

[fabiograsso]

Hi Fabio, here the same problem, have you solved?

@emporio3 unlucky not. My actual solution is a manual change on facebook-commerce-pixel-event.php but I need to re-apply the correction at every update of the plugin

[emporio3]

ok thanksI we will wait some update...In meanwhile could you please said us what to modify (file, row etc..)?

thanks

[fabiograsso]

ok thanksI we will wait some update...In meanwhile could you please said us what to modify (file, row etc..)?

@emporio3 line 26:

               static $default_pixel_basecode = "
<!--IUB-COOKIE-BLOCK-START-->
<script type='text/javascript'>
!function(f,b,e,v,n,t,s){if(f.fbq)return;n=f.fbq=function(){n.callMethod?
n.callMethod.apply(n,arguments):n.queue.push(arguments)};if(!f._fbq)f._fbq=n;
n.push=n;n.loaded=!0;n.version='2.0';n.queue=[];t=b.createElement(e);t.async=!0;
t.src=v;s=b.getElementsByTagName(e)[0];s.parentNode.insertBefore(t,s)}(window,
document,'script','https://connect.facebook.net/en_US/fbevents.js');
</script>
<!--IUB-COOKIE-BLOCK-END--> 
";

This is with reference to my comment of 30 Jan (add the Iubenda comment in order to block the script until the user accept the cookie policy).

If you prefer to remove the script loading at all (like what I've suggested on 19 Mar) I think that you can just set the $default_pixel_basecode variable to a blank line

static $default_pixel_basecode = "";

[emporio3]

Thanks so much.