As required by the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), Bazaarvoice cannot create first-party cookies without explicit consent by the user. Your website must capture user consent and programmatically pass it to Bazaarvoice.

CNIL, or Commission Nationale de l’informatique et des libertés (National Commission on Informatics and Liberty), supervises and enforces data privacy legislation. CNIL also issues rules and regulations for compliance. To become CNIL compliant, you are required to control the cookies set from Bazaarvoice. We have implemented a new javascript function and exposed it under the Bazaarvoice namespace to offer more granular control over the cookie consent settings. You can integrate and use this mechanism with your cookie consent banner to set or unset the consent.

Note: This feature only works if the loader file bv.js has been implemented.

To enable Bazaarvoice cookies, you must:

  • Contact Bazaarvoice Support to enable first-party cookies for each of your domains.
  • Use the cookie consent management feature in Bazaarvoice Configuration to require cookie opt-in. You must do this for each instance.
  • Implement code on your website to enable notification of cookie consent to Bazaarvoice systems.

Enable and implement first-party cookies

This document explains the steps to enable and set or unset consent for Bazaarvoice first-party cookies. First-party cookies are set by the domain name that appears in the browser address bar. Users will see these cookies displayed as “*.clientdomain.com” or “.clientdomain.com”. We may set and read data from those cookies.

Step 1: Enable first-party cookies

Contact Bazaarvoice Support to enable first-party cookies for each of your domains.

For each of your Bazaarvoice instances, follow these steps to enable the cookie opt-in requirement:

  1. Sign in to the Bazaarvoice Portal .
  2. From the Portal menu, select Configuration.
  3. Select the instance and Go to Configuration. The Site Manager appears, listing the available deployment zones and implementations.
  4. From the Implementations list, select Edit next to the implementation.
  5. Select Display Options from the menu.
  6. Under Cookie Opt In in the Display area, select Enabled.
    Note: You cannot enable the Cookie Opt-In option until Bazaarvoice enables first-party cookies for your domains. If the Cookie Opt-In option is disabled, you cannot set or unset the consent.

You can manage the consent in the following two ways.

To set or unset consent for first-party cookies, use the setConsent function exposed from the global Bazaarvoice endpoint.

You can create or remove the cookies controlled by cookie consent by calling the setConsent function accessed from window.BV.cookieConsent.setConsent. The function accepts an object with cookie names as the keys and true or false (depending on the consent) as the cookie values.

You can set the consent for individual cookies separately. For example, to create the cookie bv_metrics, use the following code:

    window.BV.cookieConsent.setConsent({
     bv_metrics: true
    })

To remove the cookie bv_metrics, use the following code:

    window.BV.cookieConsent.setConsent({
    bv_metrics: false
    })

You can also set the consent for multiple cookies. For example, to create the cookies bv_metrics, BVBRANDID, and BVBRANDSID, use the following code:

    window.BV.cookieConsent.setConsent({
     bv_metrics: true,
     BVBRANDID: true,
     BVBRANDSID: true
    })

To remove the cookies bv_metrics, BVBRANDID, and BVBRANDSID, use the following code:

    window.BV.cookieConsent.setConsent({
     bv_metrics: false,
     BVBRANDID: false,
     BVBRANDSID: false
    })

Using meta tags

Note: We recommend that you use setConsent function as we will deprecate the use of tag function to enable consent.

To grant consent for Bazaarvoice to place tracking cookies, add this code in the same location as your consent integration:

    // Create the bv:cookies meta element
    const bvCookieConsent = document.createElement('meta')
    bvCookieConsent.name = 'bv:cookies'
    bvCookieConsent.content = 'true'

    // Append it to the head of the page
    document.head.appendChild(bvCookieConsent)

When implemented, this element appears in your website metadata:

<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
  <head>
    <meta name="bv:cookies" content="true">
  </head>
  </html>

To prevent Bazaarvoice from setting tracking cookies, add this code in the same location as your consent integration:

    // Find and remove the bv:cookies meta element
    const bvCookieConsent = document.querySelector('meta[name="bv:cookies"]')
    bvCookieConsent.content = 'false'

Bazaarvoice cookies

Required cookies

The following cookies are required for the operation of Bazaarvoice services.

Name Use

BVImpl<site>

bvf_<id>

Used for A/B tests. <site> is the ID of the current configuration used, most often main_site.

Identifies items for which a user submitted feedback, such as a helpfulness vote. <id> is the ID of the user-generated content (UGC) that the user left feedback about.

NoCookieEU

coppa_

Set only in the US to indicate whether the user also opted out of tracking in the EU. When a user in the US opts out of tracking or indicates that they are under the age of 13 (COPPA requirement), we automatically opt them out in the EU as well. This value is honored as long as the cookie exists.

Stores contributor IDs of users under the age of 13.

NoCookie

Set when a user opts out of tracking or indicates that they are under the age of 13 (COPPA requirement). If NoCookie=true on either your site or the Bazaarvoice site, then existing tracking cookies are unset. This value is honored as long as the cookie exists.

bv_segment

Used for A/B tests. <site>is the ID of the current configuration used, most often main_site.

Optional cookies

Name Use

Bv_metrics

BVBRANDID

BVBRANDSID

Performance diagnostic events for less than 1/1000th of users.

Allows internal Bazaarvoice web analytics to be correlated to the same user for interactions within a particular domain.

Allows internal Bazaarvoice web analytics to be correlated to the same user browsing session for interactions within a particular domain.

The cookie consent mechanism is backward compatible with the existing opt-in mechanism. If you use meta tags to send consumer consent to Bazaarvoice, you do not need to make modifications.

Note: If you have additional questions about Bazaarvoice cookies, open a support case .

You can verify that Bazaarvoice is correctly interpreting whether cookie consent has or has not been granted. While your website page is running, evaluate the following:

BV.cookieConsent.getConsent('BVBRANDID')
BV.cookieConsent.getConsent('BVBRANDSID')

and inspect the results. It should return a Boolean:

{
  consent: true, // or false
  source: 'default', // or 'site'
}

where:

Consent Boolean that indicates if Bazaarvoice has consent to use tracking cookies.
Source

default—Consent is as configured for this deployment.

site—Consent is as indicated by the presence of a bv:cookies meta element.

Common questions

If a user does not provide cookie consent (does not opt in), and the setting to opt in is enabled, then BV Pixel does not set first-party cookies.

These are treated in the same way as cookies and require consent.