Can access to certain content published on a website be made conditional on consent to cookies provided by third parties?

ANSWER

Some website operators place external multimedia content on their websites (e.g., videos hosted by third-party providers) or social media sharing buttons.

A user's interaction with such content (for example, playing a video) will result in the storage and reading of trackers provided by third parties (e.g., by the video hosting platform), which may serve various purposes, including advertising.

The French supervisory authority (CNIL) indicates that in such cases, the website operator should ensure that the user's consent is obtained before the user accesses such external content. No tracker requiring consent should be stored on the user's device before valid consent has been provided.

The controller may obtain consent in two ways:

• through the cookie banner, i.e., the pop-up displayed when the user first visits the website, or through a separate cookie management tool. If the user grants consent, they will not have to provide it again each time they wish to activate external content. If the user rejects cookies provided by third parties, access to content supplied by those third parties should be blocked, but access to other content available on the website should remain unaffected;
• alternatively – immediately before activating content provided by a third party, by requesting the user's consent through an additional dedicated pop-up window.

CNIL states that users should receive clear information:

• that activating external content or using social media sharing buttons requires consent to the storage of cookies, including the purpose(s) of those cookies and a link to the third party's privacy policy, written in language understandable to the user;
• about the consequences of refusing the use of third-party cookies, including the possible inability to access external content;
• about the possibility of easily withdrawing consent at any time.