Consent management and Parse.ly

Parse.ly is a first-party analytics service owned by WordPress VIP. Parse.ly uses cookies and IP addresses, but restricts their use to recognizing unique browsers/devices. Parse.ly data collection does not link personal identity or other sensitive personal information. Learn more about Parse.ly data privacy, specifically regarding GDPR and CCPA.

Starting in 2023, the WordPress plugin for Parse.ly (wp-parsely) is included on all VIP sites as one of VIP’s mu-plugins (“must use”). The plugin automatically adds the Parse.ly tracker, a small JavaScript code, to pages of a WordPress site. By default, the Parse.ly tracker will track Posts and Pages (as Non-Posts). All other post types will not be tracked by default (ie Custom Post Types). 

Consent management

Consent management is an approach for informing website users that cookies are being used on your site, and providing them with options to consent, modify, or reject those cookies. If you’ve seen a banner asking you to agree to storing cookies on your device, you’ve experienced consent management. 

Because of regulations like GDPR and CCPA, end-user consent is now required on many websites. Consent management platforms (CMPs) like OneTrust (a VIP partner), CookieYes, Secure Privacy and more exist to make this easier for organizations to manage. There are many WordPress plugins for consent management as well. 

Consent management platforms

Consent management platforms (CMPs) let website visitors know what types of data that website collects and why, and provides options for site visitors to decide how much data they are willing to have the website collect on them. The CMP will then store the preferences of site visitors and ensure that those preferences are respected. This is a lot of work for a website to manage itself, which is why standalone platforms like OneTrust exist. 

Cookies

Cookies are small pieces of data, stored in text files. They are stored on your device (computer, mobile phone) when websites load in a browser. Websites use cookies to “remember” you and your preferences, either for a single visit (through a ’session cookie’) or for multiple repeat visits (using a ‘persistent cookie’). Cookies make sure that website visitors have a consistent experience with that site. Examples include keeping someone logged in or making it easier to sign up or register for something. 

Cookies may be set in two ways:

1. By the site that you are visiting (known as “first party cookies”)
2. By third parties, such as those who serve content or provide advertising or analytics services on the website (‘third party cookies’).

Websites and HTML emails may also contain tracking technologies such as ‘web beacons’, or ‘pixels’. These are often small, transparent images that provide websites with statistics for similar purposes as cookies. Beacons or pixels are commonly used alongside cookies, though they are not stored on your computer in the same way. If you disable cookies, the web beacons may still load, but you will restrict their functionality.

Cookies set on a site by wp-parsely

Cookies are set on a site by the must-use (mu) Parse.ly plugin via the Parse.ly JavaScript tracker code.

This is a description of every assignment to document.cookie that the JS SDK can make. Not all of these cookies are guaranteed to be written or read on every Parse.ly-tracked page load.

All of these cookies are set on the domain of the integrating page, so they are considered first-party cookies. The tracking logic used by the SDK does not set any third-party cookies.

Depending on browser compatibility and user-settable configurations, all of these pieces of data may be stored either in document.cookie or in window.localStorage.

• test: used to discover cookie support, value undefined
• _parsely_visitor: TTL 13 months, JSON document uniquely identifying a browser and counting its sessions
• _parsely_tpa_blocked: TTL 12 hours, JSON document storing a flag indicating whether pixel.parsely.com is not accessible by the tracker
• _parsely_slot_click: no TTL, explicitly cleared on some tracker loads, JSON document storing positional information about a clicked internal link
• _parsely_session: TTL 30 minutes, JSON document storing information identifying a browsing session according to Parse.ly’s proprietary definition

Ensuring that a site abides by consent requirements when the Parse.ly plugin is active

When the Parse.ly plugin is active, Parse.ly processes the data and your website controls the data. 

To make sure your site complies with GDPR, if it is not already:

• Audit your site to make sure that no personally identifiable information (PII) is being sent to Parse.ly. This is worth doing for any other analytics services on your site as well. 
• Update your sites’ privacy policy to include Parse.ly. You can refer to the Parse.ly privacy policy and data policy.
• Leverage Parse.ly’s ability to anonymize IP addresses. 

To make sure your site is logging end-user consent:

• Directly obtain end-user / website visitor consent to data collection by Parse.ly. This is done by surfacing a cookie banner to site visitors and logging their responses. You are likely already using a formal method for this, and would simply need to include Parse.ly in the description of what you are collecting and why.
• If you need to prepare or update your consent management approach, you can update your Parse.ly plugin settings in the meantime by disabling the JavaScript tracker. This is possible by visiting Settings > Parse.ly > Basic Settings and choosing Yes for the Disable JavaScript setting. Because Parse.ly is a must-use plugin, you will need to re-enable JavaScript tracking once your consent management process has been updated.