Creating notices for domains and subdomains in UCP

[TeresaChavez]

When creating site notices in the Privacy Tool/Universal Consent Platform, there are instances where a domain has various subdomains. This is an explanation of the expected behavior when creating the site notice for a domain that has subdomains.

Below is a graphic of how Evidon defines a URL string, so we can show what is considered a subdomain.   
 

Example.

You have a domain that is mycompanyname.com, and it can also be accessed through www.mycompanyname.com and forums.mycompanyname.com.  According to the graphic above, "www." and "forums." are subdomains of the root domain mycompanyname.com.

When creating a site notice in the UI, you can enter your domain as mycompanyname.com, and choose the option "Consent applies to all subdomains of mycompanyname.com" below.  This setting allows consent to apply to sites with the root domain, so www.mycompanyname.com and forums.mycompanyname.com will fire a notice if a user navigates to it directly.  Once consent is given on a subdomain, the user will no longer be served the notice on any other subdomain associated with mycompanyname.com.​
 

Please Note: The "Domain" value controls where the site notices will display.  If this is set to a sub-domain, it will only display notices for that sub-domain regardless if the "Consent applies to all subdomains of xxx" is checked.  In order to show the notice for all subdomains, the domain value should be set to the root level domain.  The "Consent applies to all subdomains of xxx" does not indicate where the notice will serve, it indicates where the consent cookie will be written to so that the consent carries across to all subdomains.

If you need a different experience for a subdomain, you will need to create a separate site notice for that specific subdomain.

[PaulRaftery]

Hi @TeresaChavez thanks you for this. I sometimes have trouble with this explanation. Could you also explain why, for example, mycompanyname.com/fr, or .com/de counts as a different domain? At least, I think that's the case! Thanks.

[TeresaChavez]

Hi @PaulRaftery   Good question.  For your example, mycompanyname.com/fr, or .com/de counts as two different domains, if they are each set up in the UI separately.  Technically, a customer could set up one notice for mycompanyname.com, apply consent to all pages, and then add country experiences for both France and Germany, and it should cover both mycompanyname.com/fr, and .com/de. 

There are cases where setting up each domain in the UI separately would be best practice.  

- If a specific country needs to have a specific experience every time, it's most stable to set up each domain separately, and then support only that country on the notice.  This will force, for example, Portugal to fire a barrier notice (or whichever notice experience is set up), no matter where the user is coming from.  There can be cases where settings that are pulled down for a notice can get complex, based on where geolocation detects a user, and then what browser language they have set.  If a user with a US domain decides to view the French version of a site, they may get the US experience, which in many cases a notice is not configured to fire.  

- If a customer experiences issues with serving up the correct experience in a country under a notice that is meant cover several domains, setting up separate notices for unique domains can help to resolve those issues.  Geolocation method used by the site could conflict with the geolocation method of the notice, and serve up an unexpected experience, for example. 

The Universal Consent Platform allows for flexibility in how these notices are set up, by providing options to cover several pages and several subdomains with one set up, and by allowing customers to choose what level consent can be applied (to all subdomains, to all pages, or to only a specific path).  Setting up separate domains is sort of a way of hard coding a specific experience for a site. 

What is best depends on what the customer needs in terms of serving up these notices.

[PaulRaftery]

Thanks @TeresaChavez , I only just read this. Need to improve my community skills 🙂

[kevinlirot]

This does not seem to work for me. I have my site set to apply to all subdomains. Yet, the notice will only display when the subdomain is www. The only thing I can think of is that the notice for my site was originally created to apply to all pages of www and I modified the configuration to all subdomains. Is there any known issue with this?

[kensnyder]

Kevin, I would recommend that you open a case with support so we can look at your specific implementation and determine why the behavior is not working correctly for you.

[CP_Product]

@kevinlirot This article has been updated to clarify the Domain value controls. Hope this helps!

[kevinlirot]

@kensnyder @CP_Product I did submit a request to support where Ken helped me find the configuration issue. This is working for me now. Thank you both for your assistance!