Cookie Smart – GDPR Cookie Banner & Consent Mode v2

Cookie Smart shows a cookie banner on your website and blocks pixels, analytics and embedded videos until the visitor gives consent. Every choice is recorded in a consent log you can export as proof.

It follows the GDPR, the ePrivacy Directive and the cookie guidelines of the Italian Data Protection Authority (Garante privacy, 10 June 2021): “Reject” as visible as “Accept”, the close button (X) counts as a rejection, no cookie wall, no pre-ticked categories.

This plugin connects your website to the Cookie Smart service (cookiesmart.it), where you configure the banner, the categories and the services to block. A Cookie Smart account is required: you can try it free for 14 days, without a credit card. See the plans at cookiesmart.it/prezzi.

What the plugin does

• Banner first in the page: the banner script is printed as the first element of the <head>, before Google Tag Manager and the other tags.
• Server-side blocking: scripts added with wp_enqueue_script that belong to services to block (Meta Pixel, Hotjar, TikTok, YouTube, Google Maps and many more) are sent to the browser as type="text/plain", so they are not even downloaded before consent. It works with caching plugins too.
• Blocking in the theme (optional, WordPress 6.9 or later): also rewrites scripts and iframes written directly in the theme or in the content, through the WordPress template output buffer.
• One source for the rules: the list of services to block comes from the Cookie Smart service, the same one used by the banner. New services reach every website without updating the plugin.
• Google Consent Mode v2: Google tags receive default: denied and then the visitor’s choice (advanced mode); basic mode is available in the Cookie Smart dashboard.
• WP Consent API: the visitor’s choices are passed to the plugins that use the WP Consent API.
• “Cookie preferences” link: use the shortcode [cookie_smart_preferences] or a link to #cookiesmart-preferences in your footer menu.
• Resilient: if the service cannot be reached, the plugin keeps using the last configuration it received, so the services stay blocked.

What the Cookie Smart service adds

• Cookie scanner that finds and classifies the cookies of your website.
• Banner customisation: colours, position, texts in Italian and English.
• Consent log kept for 12 months, with CSV export and the exact banner shown to each visitor.
• Statistics on accept, reject and custom choices.
• Multiple websites and team members, depending on the plan.

External services

This plugin connects your website to the Cookie Smart service, provided by PC Web Agency (Italy). The service is required: it provides the cookie banner, the list of services to block and the consent log. Nothing is sent until you enter your site key in the plugin settings.

1. Cookie Smart API (cookiesmart.it) – configuration
From your server, the plugin requests the configuration of your website (the services to block and the address of the banner script) from https://cookiesmart.it/api/v1/sites/{site key}/config. It sends only the site key. The request is made when you save the settings, when you open the plugin page and at most every 6 hours (every 10 minutes if the service did not answer).

2. Banner script (cdn.cookiesmart.it and cookiesmart.it) – in your visitors’ browsers
Each page of your website loads the banner script from https://cdn.cookiesmart.it (bunny.net CDN, European servers) or from https://cookiesmart.it. Like any web request, it sends the visitor’s IP address and browser information to the CDN and to Cookie Smart.

3. Consent log (cookiesmart.it) – in your visitors’ browsers
When a visitor makes a choice in the banner, the browser sends it to https://cookiesmart.it/api/v1/consents: a random consent ID, the categories accepted or rejected, the configuration version, the page address, the language and the browser user agent. The IP address is truncated before it is stored (IPv4 /24, IPv6 /48). Records are kept for 12 months as proof of consent.

Cookie Smart terms of service: https://cookiesmart.it/termini
Cookie Smart privacy policy: https://cookiesmart.it/privacy