Your scan says a website doesn't use any cookie but...
Sometimes I receive a report about a website saying that it doesn't use cookies of any sort. The website tells me otherwise: they use necessary, statistics, profilation and third party cookies.
I see that the website is installing cookies on my browser. At that point there's no way I can believe you.
What are your difficulties in doing your job?
Regards,
Paola
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Official comment
Hey there,
It's so great to see everybody trying to help out here!
We've had some dialogue outside of the community and I'll just share a summary here to avoid any confusion and so it may also be useful to others who come across this thread in the community.
The reports mentioned here are the ones that are produced as part of the free compliance test (attached to the email with the test result) - currently the compliance test is offered from the front page of www.cookiebot.com. It is important to keep in mind that this is not a full scan of a website - it is a partial scan of up to 5 pages which is done to indicate whether a website is GDPR and ePR compliant or not. You can read more about the compliance test here: https://support.cookiebot.com/hc/en-us/articles/360004006353-How-can-I-test-if-my-website-s-use-of-cookies-and-online-tracking-is-GDPR-ePR-compliant-
Sometimes the test result will come back and the report will indicate that 0 cookies are found (although this very rarely happens). There could be different reasons for this:
- No cookies were set on those up to 5 pages that were tested
- There is already another cookie solution in place on the website. For the free compliance test, the scanner cannot be set up to submit a consent so that cookies will be set and thereby also detected by the scanner (for subscribers this can be set up but not as part of the free test). This was actually the case on one of the domains in question - and when a regular user gave consent, 1 cookie was set (a cookie related to the cookie solution in place on the website).
Frankly, it is quite rare that a website does not use any cookies at all but it does happen. Just keep in mind that the free compliance test does not give a full picture of all cookies (or lack of) on a website.
What is also worth noting is that not all cookies are visible from the browser console (for example not all dynamic cookies as well as other types of cookies and trackers that our scanner detects) (see https://support.cookiebot.com/hc/en-us/articles/360004269614-Why-does-your-scanner-find-cookies-and-trackers-that-I-cannot-myself-find-on-my-website-Where-do-they-come-from-) That being said, however, the most common cookies - for example statistics cookies - can most often be seen in the browser console. For some of the domains we checked, nothing was being set in the browser (contrary to what is indicated in this thread's original post) and not even the most common cookies were visible in the browser console, indicating that those cookies are not in use on the website (for whatever the reason may be). We have no indications that there are cookies, which our scanner does not find - although I fully understand the puzzle faced by Paola & the team about why those websites seem to use no cookies (contrary to their own and the customers' belief).
@Paola I will respond to your open ticket in the helpdesk shortly - just wanted to provide this information to others in case anyone else find themselves in the same situation. -
Is it actually possible for a website not to use any cookies, not even the so called "necessary" ones?
Regards,
Paola
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What was the source of the "report" that you "received"?
Thank you!
Eliz.
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Your website, from the main page.
Thank you,
Paola
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> Your website, from the main page.
Do you mean the CookieBot website, from your account's dashboard? (I'm just another CookieBot user.)
Are you saying that, after you log in to your account on CookieBot, and you click the "Cookies" link, you are taken to a page which says "We discovered no cookies", but then gives a list of cookies? Or are you saying that, after you logged in, you clicked on the "Reports" link, and were taken to a report that said there were no cookies, but included a list of them? Or are you saying that there is a conflict between what you're seeing under the "Cookies" and "Reports" links?
Also, for the "Reports" link, are you clicking on the most recent "report"? (You say "sometimes", which suggests that you've been using CookieBot for many months, and that this issue only occurs on occasion.)
Thank you!
Eliz.
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No, it's been a month. Since we are resellers, we checked the domains of our customers (over 50 websites, so not so many). They are Cookiebot potential customers but with our account we aren't able to do a more accurate scan. We know it's impossible for them not to use any cookie, but we can't make an offer to those who are GDPR compliant, it wouldn't make any sense.
Thank you,
Paola
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