Website Cookies and Tracking Technologies What Texas Dealers Need to Know in an Evolving Legal Landscape By MARK SANBORN, Senior Product and Regulatory Counsel, ComplyAuto You have probably noticed those (somewhat irritating) “cookie banners” that have begun appearing on websites of all kinds — what are they and why are they popping up everywhere? The bottom line is that there is a cottage industry of plaintiff lawyers, along with a growing consensus of state and federal regulators, who are concerned about cookies and other tracking technologies on websites and are determined to address them with regulatory action and litigation. For dealers (as with other businesses), you need a banner, and you need one that not only is designed in a compliant manner and includes the required information, but it MUST WORK as stated, and that is no small task. Is the risk real? Unfortunately, the answer is yes. Somewhat akin to the ADA website issue from a few years ago, a sizable contingent of plaintiffs’ lawyers is targeting businesses of all kinds, including dealers, and the risks are real if you don’t get this right. All dealer websites load a large number of cookies, scripts and other tools that are intended to track visitors on your site (analytics), and across the internet (retargeting). Dealers, marketing companies and OEMs increasingly rely on website cookies and related tracking technologies to generate leads, measure advertising effectiveness and personalize the customer experience. And sometimes these third parties load, use, disguise or obtain these tools on the dealers’ websites — with or without the knowledge of the dealer. These tools are powerful and often essential to modern digital retailing. They also create legal and compliance exposure that now demands attention at the executive level. The legal impacts are not confined to one state or region; they now apply across the country and extend to all dealers who collect data online. WHAT IS ACTUALLY RUNNING ON YOUR WEBSITE? The sad truth is that many dealers don’t know what is actually happening on their websites — and that can raise not only compliance and litigation risks, but practical business concerns as well. Your website is your digital storefront, your data and your customers, and these tools allow third parties to extract, use and share that data. If you don’t know what’s happening, it’s likely that some third party is taking data that you aren’t even aware of. We won’t get too technical here, but while “cookies” is the common shorthand, most dealership websites use a broader ecosystem of tracking technologies. These include traditional browser cookies, tracking pixels that transmit user activity to third parties, JavaScript tags and tag managers that dynamically load external scripts, analytics platforms, chat tools, session replay software, search tools and advertising integrations. These technologies can collect or transmit IP addresses, device identifiers, browsing activity, vehicle interest and form interactions. In some cases, they may also capture finance-related information such as payment estimator inputs, lease-versus-loan selections, income ranges or credit score approximations. Many of these tools are implemented directly by website providers, digital marketing vendors, OEM programs or advertising platforms. As a result, dealerships may be sharing consumer data externally without fully understanding the scope of what is being collected or where it is being sent. As with any data sharing, there may be good reasons to engage in practices that use these tools — as long as you are 19 DEALERS’ CHOICE
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