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Display GDPR Consent for Videos

Table of contents:

What is GDPR and Who Needs It?

The General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) is a European data protection law that ensures users have control over their personal data, including cookies stored by websites and third-party services. Our plugin integrates a GDPR Cookie Consent feature to help website owners comply with GDPR regulations while embedding videos from external platforms.

The plugin supports embedding videos from YouTube, Vimeo, Dailymotion, Rumble, Facebook, and any external video service providers using third-party player codes. These providers store cookies in the user’s browser, which is why we developed this GDPR Cookie Consent feature. When enabled, the player initially displays a Cookie Consent Banner, and only after the user’s consent is granted, the video is displayed. When a user gives consent, our plugin stores a cookie named “aiovg_gdpr_consent” in their browser. As long as this cookie is present, the cookie consent banner will not be displayed again. This ensures that viewers only need to give consent once, preventing any disruption to their user experience.

The Cookie Consent Banner covers the video player only. Gallery thumbnails of YouTube, Vimeo, Dailymotion, and Rumble videos are a separate matter, covered in Serving Video Thumbnails From Your Own Server.

Who Needs This Feature?

This feature is essential for websites that:

  • Embed videos from third-party platforms such as YouTube, Vimeo, Dailymotion, etc.
  • Operate in or have visitors from European Union (EU) countries, where GDPR compliance is mandatory.

However, you do not need this feature if:

  • Your website does not embed videos from external platforms.
  • Your website does not serve users from the European Union.

Follow these steps to enable and configure the GDPR Cookie Consent feature in our plugin:

  1. Navigate to the “Video Gallery → Settings → Advanced (tab)” in your WordPress Admin Dashboard.
  2. Click on the “GDPR & Cookie Consent” submenu.
  3. Cookie Consent:
    • Check this option to ask for viewer consent before loading videos from YouTube, Vimeo, or other third-party websites.
  4. Consent Message:
    • Modify the message displayed in the Cookie Banner to inform users about data usage.
  5. Consent Button Label:
    • The Cookie Banner includes a button that users click to give consent. You can customize its text to fit your website.

Serving Video Thumbnails From Your Own Server

When you add a video from YouTube, Vimeo, Dailymotion, or Rumble, the plugin uses the provider’s own thumbnail image and links to it directly. Every visitor who opens a page showing that video in a gallery loads the image from the provider’s server. The provider receives the visitor’s IP address on page load, before any consent is given. The Cookie Consent option does not cover these images, and the Cookie Consent Banner itself uses the same thumbnail as its background.

To avoid this, have the plugin download those thumbnails to your own server and serve them from there. No request is then made to the provider until the visitor plays the video.

Downloading Thumbnails for New Videos

  1. Navigate to the “Video Gallery → Settings → Display (tab)” in your WordPress Admin Dashboard.
  2. Click on the “Images” submenu, and scroll down to the “Featured Images” section.
  3. Enable Featured Images:
    • Check this option to store your video poster images as WordPress featured images.
  4. Download External Images:
    • Check this option to download thumbnails from YouTube, Vimeo, Dailymotion, and Rumble to your Media Library. This option works only together with Enable Featured Images.
  5. Click “Save Changes”.

From now on, the thumbnail is downloaded whenever you add or update a video. On the video form, the “Store this image as a featured image” option under the poster image must stay checked. It is checked by default. Videos imported automatically from YouTube or Vimeo through our premium add-on follow the same setting.

Updating Your Existing Videos

The setting above does not change videos you added earlier. To update them all at once, export your videos to a CSV file and import the same file back. The import updates each video in place, so no duplicates are created.

  1. Navigate to the “Video Gallery → Bulk Import / Export” in your WordPress Admin Dashboard.
  2. Under “Export Videos”, click “Export CSV” and save the file to your computer.
  3. Under “Import from CSV File”, click “Upload File” next to the “CSV File” field and select the file you just exported.
  4. Check “Set Featured Images”.
  5. Map CSV Columns to Video Fields:
    • Match each column to the field with the same name. The exported column names match the field names exactly.
    • Make sure “Video ID (existing video)” is mapped. This is what tells the plugin to update your existing videos instead of creating new ones.
    • Make sure “Poster Image” is mapped. This is the image the plugin downloads.
  6. Click “Import Videos”.

Thumbnail Quality

Downloaded thumbnails are added to your Media Library like any other image, so WordPress creates its usual image sizes from them (see “Settings → Media”). The gallery loads the size selected in the “Image Size” option under “Video Gallery → Settings → Display (tab) → Images“. If your thumbnails look soft, select “Large” or “Full Size” there.

Using a Cookie Consent Plugin

If you use a cookie consent plugin such as Borlabs Cookie, Complianz, Real Cookie Banner, or Cookiebot, you don’t need to configure anything in it for these thumbnails. Once the images are served from your own server, there is no third-party request left to block or to ask consent for.

Managing Additional Cookies Used by Our Plugin

In addition to “aiovg_gdpr_consent,” our plugin sets two cookies that you can turn off if your website does not require them. Check them under the “Disable Cookies from our Plugin” option in the same “GDPR & Cookie Consent” section.

  1. aiovg_videos_views
    • This cookie is used to calculate unique video views. If disabled, each view by a user will be counted separately, even if they watch the same video multiple times.
  2. aiovg_rand_seed
    • This cookie is required if you display videos in a random order with pagination enabled on your site.

Our plugin also sets the following cookies for visitors who are not logged in. They are not covered by the “Disable Cookies from our Plugin” option, and each one is kept for 30 days.

  1. aiovg_videos_likes
    • Remembers the videos a visitor has liked, so they cannot like the same video twice. It is set only when the “Like Button” is enabled and “Login Required to Vote” is unchecked, under “Video Gallery → Settings → Engagement (tab) → Likes & Votes“. Check “Login Required to Vote” if you don’t want this cookie.
  2. aiovg_videos_dislikes
    • The same as above, for the “Dislike Button”.
  3. aiovg_email_captured
    • Remembers the videos for which a visitor has already submitted the email capture form, so the form is not shown to them again. It is set only when you use the email capture form under “Video Gallery → Settings → Engagement (tab) → Email & Lead Capture“. For logged-in users, the same information is stored in their user profile instead of a cookie.
    • Note: A visitor who has this cookie is not shown the Cookie Consent Banner, and the video loads directly.
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