Under the Google EU User Consent Policy, you must make certain disclosures to your users in the European Economic Area (EEA) and obtain their consent to use cookies or other local storage, where legally required, and to use personal data (such as AdID) to serve ads. This policy reflects the requirements of the EU ePrivacy Directive and the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR).
To support publishers in meeting their duties under this policy, Google offers a Consent SDK. The Consent SDK is an open-source library that provides utility functions for collecting consent from your users. The full source code is available on GitHub.
Ads served by Google can be categorized as personalized or non-personalized, both requiring consent from users in the EEA. By default, ad requests to Google serve personalized ads, with ad selection based on the user's previously collected data. Google also supports configuring ad requests to serve non-personalized ads. Learn more about personalized and non-personalized ads.
This guide describes how to use the Consent SDK to obtain consent from users. It also describes how to forward consent to the Google Mobile Ads SDK once you have obtained consent.
Prerequisites
- Sign in to your Google Ad Manager account and select the type of ads you want to show.
Import the Consent SDK
Apps can import the Consent SDK with a Gradle
dependency that points to Google's Maven repository. In order to use that
repository, you need to reference it in the app's project-level build.gradle
file. Open yours and look for an allprojects
section:
Example project-level build.gradle (excerpt)
allprojects { repositories { google() jcenter() } }
Add the google()
directive above if it's not already present.
Next, open the app-level build.gradle
file for your app, and look for
a "dependencies" section.
Example app-level build.gradle (excerpt)
dependencies { implementation fileTree(dir: 'libs', include: ['*.jar']) implementation 'androidx.appcompat:appcompat:1.0.2' implementation 'com.google.android.ads.consent:consent-library:1.0.6' }
Add the line in bold above, which instructs Gradle to pull in the latest version of the Consent SDK. Once that's done, save the file and perform a Gradle sync.
Tips for using the Consent SDK
Prior to using any other methods in the Consent SDK, you should update consent status to make sure the Consent SDK has the latest information regarding the ad technology providers you've selected in the Ad Manager UI. If the list of ad technology providers has changed since the user last provided consent, the consent state is set back to an unknown state.
If you don't use mediation
If you aren't using mediation, you have two options for implementing the Consent SDK to collect consent.
One option is to use the Consent SDK to present a Google-rendered consent form to your users. The consent form displays a list of the ad technology providers you've selected in the Ad Manager UI. The Consent SDK stores the user consent response.
The other option is to use the Consent SDK to dynamically retrieve the full list of ad technology providers from Ad Manager, as explained in publisher-managed consent collection. However, in this case you'll need to determine how the list of providers should be made available to your users and present your own consent form to your users.
Once the user has made a consent choice, you can ask the Consent SDK to store the user's consent choice as explained in Storing publisher managed consent.
Upon collecting consent, if a user has consented to receive only non-personalized ads, you'll need to forward consent to the Google Mobile Ads SDK.
If you use Ad Manager mediation
You can use the Consent SDK to dynamically retrieve the full list of ad technology providers from Ad Manager, as explained in publisher-managed consent collection. You'll need to determine which additional ad technology providers from other ad networks need to be presented to your users for consent.
As an app developer, you'll need to collect user consent for both the ad technology providers returned by the Consent SDK and the providers from other ad networks. You'll also need to manually store user consent responses and forward consent to the Google Mobile Ads SDK if the user consented to receive only non-personalized ads.
Google currently is unable to obtain and handle consent for mediation networks, so you'll need to obtain and handle consent for each ad network separately. We are actively working with all of our open source and versioned mediation networks to provide updated documentation with details on how to forward consent. Documentation is already live for the following mediation networks:
Update consent status
When using the Consent SDK, it is recommended that you determine the status of a
user's consent at every app launch. To do this, call
requestConsentInfoUpdate()
on an instance of ConsentInformation
.
import com.google.ads.consent.*; public class MainActivity extends Activity { ... @Override protected void onCreate(Bundle savedInstanceState) { ... ConsentInformation consentInformation = ConsentInformation.getInstance(context); String[] publisherIds = {"1234"}; consentInformation.requestConsentInfoUpdate(publisherIds, new ConsentInfoUpdateListener() { @Override public void onConsentInfoUpdated(ConsentStatus consentStatus) { // User's consent status successfully updated. } @Override public void onFailedToUpdateConsentInfo(String errorDescription) { // User's consent status failed to update. } }); ... } ... }
The call to requestConsentInfoUpdate()
requires two arguments:
An array of valid, fully activated publisher IDs that your app requests ads from. For Ad Manager accounts, pass your Ad Manager network code.
An instance of
ConsentInfoUpdateListener
.
If the consent information is successfully updated, the updated consent
status is provided via the onConsentInfoUpdated()
method of the
ConsentInfoUpdateListener
. The returned ConsentStatus
may have the values
listed below:
Consent Status | Definition |
---|---|
ConsentStatus.PERSONALIZED |
The user has granted consent for personalized ads. |
ConsentStatus.NON_PERSONALIZED |
The user has granted consent for non-personalized ads. |
ConsentStatus.UNKNOWN |
The user has neither granted nor declined consent for personalized or non-personalized ads. |
Once consent information is successfully updated, you can also check
ConsentInformation.getInstance(context).isRequestLocationInEeaOrUnknown()
to
see if the user is located in the European Economic Area or the request
location is unknown.
If the isRequestLocationInEeaOrUnknown()
method returns false
,
the user is not located in the European Economic Area and consent is not
required under the EU User Consent
Policy.
You can make ad requests to the Google Mobile Ads SDK.
If the isRequestLocationInEeaOrUnknown()
method returns true
:
If the returned
ConsentStatus
isPERSONALIZED
orNON_PERSONALIZED
, the user has already provided consent. You can now forward consent to the Google Mobile Ads SDK.If the returned
ConsentStatus
isUNKNOWN
, see the Collect consent section below, which describes the use of utility methods to collect consent.
Collect consent
Google's Consent SDK. provides two ways to collect consent from a user:

Present a Google-rendered consent form to the user.
Request the list of ad technology providers and collect consent yourself using the Publisher-managed consent collection option.
Remember to provide users with the option to Change or revoke consent.
Google-rendered consent form
The Google-rendered consent form is a full-screen configurable form that displays over your app content. You can configure the form to present the user with combinations of the following options:
- Consent to view personalized ads
- Consent to view non-personalized ads
- Use a paid version of the app instead of viewing ads
You should review the consent text carefully: what appears by default is a
message that might be appropriate if you use Google to monetize your app;
but we cannot provide legal advice on the consent text that is appropriate for
you. To update consent text of the Google-rendered consent form, modify the
consentform.html
file included in the Consent SDK as required.
ConsentForm
class. The following code demonstrates how to build a
ConsentForm
with all three consent options:
URL privacyUrl = null;
try {
// TODO: Replace with your app's privacy policy URL.
privacyUrl = new URL("https://www.your.com/privacyurl");
} catch (MalformedURLException e) {
e.printStackTrace();
// Handle error.
}
ConsentForm form = new ConsentForm.Builder(context, privacyUrl)
.withListener(new ConsentFormListener() {
@Override
public void onConsentFormLoaded() {
// Consent form loaded successfully.
}
@Override
public void onConsentFormOpened() {
// Consent form was displayed.
}
@Override
public void onConsentFormClosed(
ConsentStatus consentStatus, Boolean userPrefersAdFree) {
// Consent form was closed.
}
@Override
public void onConsentFormError(String errorDescription) {
// Consent form error.
}
})
.withPersonalizedAdsOption()
.withNonPersonalizedAdsOption()
.withAdFreeOption()
.build();
The methods above prepare the Google-rendered consent form with the following options:
withListener()
- Registers a listener for the
ConsentForm
. Each of the overridable methods inConsentFormListener
corresponds to an event in the lifecycle of the consent form.Overridable methods onConsentFormLoaded
The consent form successfully loaded. onConsentFormError
The consent form failed to load. The errorDescription
parameter provides a description of the error.onConsentFormOpened
The consent form was opened. onConsentFormClosed
The consent form was closed. The parameters of the method provides the following information: consentStatus
is aConsentStatus
value that describes the updated consent status of the user.userPrefersAdFree
has a value oftrue
when the user chose to use a paid version of the app instead of viewing ads.
withPersonalizedAdsOption()
- Indicates that the consent form should show a personalized ad option.
withNonPersonalizedAdsOption()
- Indicates that the consent form should show a non-personalized ad option.
withAdFreeOption()
- Indicates that the consent form should show an ad-free app option.
Load consent form
Once you have created a ConsentForm
object, load the consent form by
invoking the load()
method of ConsentForm
, as shown below:
form.load();
Show consent form
To present the user with the Google-rendered consent form, call show()
on
an instance of ConsentForm
, as demonstrated below:
form.show();
After the user selects an option and closes the form, the Consent SDK saves
the user's choice and fires the onConsentFormClosed
event. You can listen
for this event and forward consent to the Google Mobile Ads
SDK.
Publisher-managed consent collection
If you choose to collect consent yourself, you can use the getAdProviders()
method of the ConsentInformation
class to get the ad technology providers
associated with the publisher IDs used in your app. Note that consent is
required for the full list of ad technology providers configured for your
publisher IDs.
Before you can call getAdProviders()
, you must wait for the
onConsentInfoUpdate()
method of the ConsentInfoUpdateListener
as described
in the Update consent status section.
List<AdProvider> adProviders =
ConsentInformation.getInstance(context).getAdProviders();
You can then use the list of ad technology providers to obtain consent yourself.
Storing publisher-managed consent
Upon getting consent, record the ConsentStatus
corresponding to the user's
response using the setConsentStatus()
method of the ConsentInformation
class.
ConsentInformation.getInstance(context)
.setConsentStatus(ConsentStatus.PERSONALIZED);
After reporting consent to the Consent SDK, you can forward consent to the Google Mobile Ads SDK.
Change or revoke consent
To allow users to update their consent, simply repeat the steps outlined in the Collect consent section when the user chooses to update their consent status.
Users under the age of consent
If a publisher is aware that the user is under the age of consent, all ad
requests must set TFUA (Tag For Users under the Age of Consent in Europe). To
include this tag on all ad requests made from your app,
call setTagForUnderAgeOfConsent(true)
. This setting takes effect for all
future ad requests.
ConsentInformation.getInstance(context).setTagForUnderAgeOfConsent(true);
Once the TFUA setting is enabled, the Google-rendered consent form will fail to load. All ad requests that include TFUA will be made ineligible for personalized advertising and remarketing. TFUA disables requests to third-party ad technology providers, such as ad measurement pixels and third-party ad servers.
To remove TFUA from ad requests,
call setTagForUnderAgeOfConsent(false)
.
Testing
The Consent SDK has different behaviors depending on the value of
ConsentInformation.getInstance(context).isRequestLocationInEeaOrUnknown()
.
For example, the consent form fails to load if the user is not located in the
EEA.
To enable easier testing of your app both inside and outside the EEA, the Consent SDK supports debug options that you can set prior to calling any other methods in the Consent SDK.
Follow the instructions in the update consent status section to call
requestConsentInfoUpdate
. Then run your app. Check the logcat output for the following log:I/ConsentInformation: Use ConsentInformation.getInstance(context).addTestDevice("33BE2250B43518CCDA7DE426D04EE231") to get test ads on this device.
Designate your device as a test device using the advertising ID from logcat:
ConsentInformation.getInstance(context).addTestDevice("33BE2250B43518CCDA7DE426D04EE231");
Finally, call
setDebugGeography
to set your preferred geography for testing purposes.// Geography appears as in EEA for test devices. ConsentInformation.getInstance(context). setDebugGeography(DebugGeography.DEBUG_GEOGRAPHY_EEA); // Geography appears as not in EEA for debug devices. ConsentInformation.getInstance(context). setDebugGeography(DebugGeography.DEBUG_GEOGRAPHY_NOT_EEA);
After completing these steps, calls to update consent status will take into account your debug geography.
Forward consent to the Google Mobile Ads SDK
The code in this section can be used with any version of the Google Mobile Ads SDK. It can also be used regardless of whether you used the Consent SDK to gather consent.
The default behavior of the Google Mobile Ads SDK is to serve personalized ads.
If a user has consented to receive only non-personalized ads, you can configure
an PublisherAdRequest
object to specify that only
non-personalized ads should be requested. The following code causes
non-personalized ads to be requested regardless of whether or not the user is
in the EEA:
Bundle extras = new Bundle();
extras.putString("npa", "1");
PublisherAdRequest request = new PublisherAdRequest.Builder()
.addNetworkExtrasBundle(AdMobAdapter.class, extras)
.build();
If non-personalized ads are requested, the ad request URL currently includes
&npa=1
. However, note that this is an internal implementation detail of the
Google Mobile Ads SDK and is subject to change.
Delay app measurement (optional)
By default, the Google Mobile Ads SDK initializes app measurement and begins sending user-level event data to Google immediately when the app starts.
However, if your app requires user consent before these events can be sent, you can delay app measurement until you explicitly initialize the Mobile Ads SDK or load an ad.
To delay app measurement, add the following <meta-data>
tag in your
AndroidManifest.xml
.
<manifest> <application> <!-- Delay app measurement until MobileAds.initialize() is called. --> <meta-data android:name="com.google.android.gms.ads.DELAY_APP_MEASUREMENT_INIT" android:value="true"/> </application> </manifest>
FAQ
- How many ad technology providers does the Consent SDK support?
- The Consent SDK does not impose a limit on the number of ad technology providers a publisher chooses to enable.
- Does the list of ad technology providers returned by the SDK automatically update if I change my selection in the Ad Manager UI?
- Yes, if you make changes to the list of ad technology providers in the Ad Manager UI, the changes will propagate to Google's ad servers in approximately one hour.