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Why do Google Analytics 4 (GA4) network calls continue to fire on "stackoverflow.com" even after cookies are turned off from the OneTrust Cookie settings?
Hey, I need some help understanding something. I thought we could turn off Google Analytics 4 (GA4) by changing the cookies settings via the OneTrust tool on “stackoverflow.com”, but it’s not working as expected. It seems GA4 continues sending network calls. Don’t believe me? Check out these screenshots I’ve taken. Here you can see the network calls are still firing, even though I gave no consent through the settings. Also, you can see here that GA is filed under a performance cookie. I switched off the performance cookies on the OneTrust settings on the website, so shouldn’t that have stopped GA4? Yet it keeps calling out to GA servers. Any insight is appreciated! Cheers, Adi.
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2 Replies
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Sure, let me break this down for you!
Now, blocking or not having cookies doesn’t stop tracking from occurring. It only tends to lose the context of tracking, like the session and the user scope. In your case additional tracking isn’t required as you’re already logged into Stack Overflow.
As for OneTrust, I don’t think it overrides the cookie setting method. Rather, it tends to regularly check or ‘poll’ cookies and deletes those considered unnecessary or irrelevant. But tracking library often sets a cookie and use it instantaneously making it extremely hard for any tool to intercept in between. That cookie serves more as a throwaway placeholder with random numbers to uphold the context for the next call.
In a perfect world, stopping analytics from firing when consent is not granted would be done through blockers in Tag Management Systems (TMS). This would stop tracking logic from even being triggered if consent isn’t given. But it seems like Stack Overflow doesn’t pay much attention to these subtleties!
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It appears you’re experiencing an issue where disabling performance cookies via the OneTrust tool on “stackoverflow.com” does not stop Google Analytics 4 (GA4) from making network calls. From what you’ve described and the screenshots you’ve shared, it does seem unexpected if GA4 network calls continue even after disabling the corresponding cookies. However, there are a few potential reasons why this could be happening. It’s possible that GA4 might not be correctly categorized under performance cookies within OneTrust’s settings. Alternatively, GA4 might be using other types of cookies or techniques like local storage or fingerprinting to keep tracking. Occasionally, GA4 might also send some last bits of data before fully respecting the new settings. If the issue persists, you might need to contact the website administrators to ensure the consent tool is working as intended.
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