Do You Actually Need a Cookie Banner?
You visit almost any website and see some version of the same message: “We use cookies.”
Does your startup actually need one of those banners?
The answer is not determined simply by whether your website uses cookies. It can depend on what technologies you use, what they do, which privacy rules apply, and whether user consent or another mechanism is required.
Before copying another company’s banner, find out what your own website is actually doing.
What Founders Need to Know
Cookies and tracking technologies are tools that can store or access information on a user’s device or help collect information about how someone interacts with a website or application.
They can serve different purposes.
Some may support functions necessary for a website to operate, while others may be used for analytics, personalization, advertising, or tracking activity across services.
Those differences matter because applicable privacy rules may treat them differently.
Consent can also have a specific legal meaning. Where valid consent is required, displaying a banner that simply tells visitors cookies are being used may not necessarily satisfy the applicable requirements.
Depending on the law and circumstances, individuals may also have data subject rights or other privacy choices concerning information collected about them.
The first step is therefore not designing the banner. It is identifying the technologies running on the site.
What This Looks Like in Practice
Imagine a startup launches a simple marketing website.
Initially, the site provides product information and a contact form.
Later, the marketing team adds an analytics platform to understand visitor behavior. Then it installs an advertising pixel to measure campaigns and retarget visitors. A scheduling tool, embedded video player, and chat service are added too.
Nobody revisits the cookie setup.
Eventually, the founder asks, “Do we need a cookie banner?”
The answer requires looking underneath the website.
Which tools place or access cookies or use similar tracking technologies? What information do they collect? Are they necessary to operate the site, or are they being used for analytics or advertising? When do they activate? Which third parties receive the resulting information?
If certain technologies require consent in a jurisdiction applicable to your users, another practical question follows: Do those technologies wait for the required choice, or do they begin operating as soon as the page loads?
A banner cannot fix a tracking setup that nobody understands.
Three Common Founder Mistakes
- Copying another company’s cookie banner. Their website, technologies, users, and legal obligations may be different from yours.
- Treating the banner as the compliance mechanism. What happens technically before and after a user’s choice can matter as much as the words displayed on screen.
- Forgetting that marketing tools change. A website can accumulate analytics, advertising, embedded content, and other technologies over time.
10-Minute Founder Self-Check
Open your website and make a list of the tools running on it:
- What cookies or similar technologies are being used?
- Which are necessary for website functionality?
- Which are used for analytics?
- Which are used for advertising or retargeting?
- Which third parties receive information?
- When do those technologies activate?
- Are we asking users for consent anywhere?
- Does the user’s choice actually change what technologies run?
- Does our privacy or cookie disclosure match our current setup?
- Have new marketing tools been added since our last privacy review?
What to Do Next
Before deciding what your cookie banner should say, map the technologies operating on your website and what information they collect or share.
Download Primum Law Group’s Data Mapping Worksheet to document what your product collects, where the information goes, and who has access to it.