Darwin Cookie Consent

Darwin Cookie Consent shows visitors a clear cookie banner, lets them choose what to accept, and sends those choices to your analytics and marketing tools through Google Consent Mode v2. Analytics and advertising cookies stay denied until the visitor gives consent.

The plugin includes admin controls for legal links, appearance, integrations, localized frontend messaging, and privacy-safe reporting.

Key Features

• GDPR cookie consent banner and settings modal

• Google Consent Mode v2 support

• Editable localized content for English, French, German, Spanish, and Italian

• Automatic content selection by WordPress site locale

• WordPress editor support for the banner message and modal intro

• Configurable legal page links for privacy, terms, and cookie policy

• Integration controls for Google Tag Manager, GA4, Matomo, Facebook Pixel, LinkedIn Insight Tag, and Pardot

• Separate Ad Personalization consent handling

• Accept Essential Only banner button lets visitors decline analytics, marketing, and ad personalization in one click

• Required Strictly Necessary Cookies row always enabled in the popup

• Optional × close icon on the banner — show or hide via the Appearance settings

• Optional Accept Essential Only button — hide it to show only Accept All and Configure on the banner

• Aggregate admin metrics for recent banner views and accepts, deduplicated per browser session

• Resettable metrics counters with no personal data stored in the metrics table

Consent Categories

• Strictly Necessary Cookies: always required and always enabled

• Analytics: used for analytics tools such as Google Analytics and Matomo

• Marketing: used for marketing-related tracking integrations

• Ad Personalization: handled separately from general marketing consent

Privacy and Data Handling

• Localized content is stored in WordPress options

• Consent metrics store aggregate daily counts only — no personal identifiers are stored in the metrics table

• The consent log table stores a SHA-256 hash of the visitor IP address and the browser user agent alongside the encoded consent payload; no plain-text IP addresses are stored

• Consent Mode signals are updated based on saved user choices

• No data is transmitted to the plugin author or any third-party service by this plugin itself

External Services

This plugin can load scripts from third-party services when those integrations are configured in the plugin settings. No external requests are made unless the corresponding integration is enabled by the site administrator.

Google Tag Manager

com. Google Consent Mode defaults are applied before GTM loads so that no tracking occurs without user consent.

• Data sent: page URL and GTM container ID as part of the script request.

• When: on every frontend page load, only if a GTM container ID is configured.

• Service provider: Google LLC — Terms of Service | Privacy Policy

Google Analytics (GA4)

com on every page, following Google Consent Mode v2 (advanced mode). js loads, so no analytics or advertising cookies are set until the visitor grants consent. Until then, Google receives cookieless measurement pings only.

• Data sent: page URL, measurement ID, and cookieless measurement pings (without analytics cookies) before consent; full GA4 measurement data after measurement consent is granted.

• When: on every frontend page load, only if a GA4 ID is configured.

• Service provider: Google LLC — Terms of Service | Privacy Policy

Google Fonts

When the default plugin font is selected, this plugin loads the Roboto typeface from Google Fonts. com. A preconnect resource hint is also added for both domains.

• Data sent: browser and referrer information as part of the font request (standard browser HTTP headers).

• When: on every frontend page load when the default font option is active.

• Service provider: Google LLC — Terms of Service | Privacy Policy

Facebook Pixel

net. The script only fires after marketing consent is granted.

• Data sent: page URL and pixel ID as part of the script request.

• When: on every frontend page load after marketing consent is granted, only if a Pixel ID is configured.

• Service provider: Meta Platforms, Inc. — Terms of Service | Privacy Policy

LinkedIn Insight Tag

com. The script only fires after marketing consent is granted.

• Data sent: page URL and partner ID as part of the script request.

• When: on every frontend page load after marketing consent is granted, only if a Partner ID is configured.

• Service provider: LinkedIn Corporation — Terms of Service | Privacy Policy

Salesforce Pardot

com. The script only fires after marketing consent is granted.

• Data sent: page URL and account/campaign IDs as part of the script request.

• When: on every frontend page load after marketing consent is granted, only if Pardot IDs are configured.

• Service provider: Salesforce, Inc. — Terms of Service | Privacy Policy

Matomo

When a Matomo URL and site ID are provided, this plugin loads the Matomo tracking script from the configured Matomo instance. The script only fires after measurement consent is granted.

• Data sent: page URL and site ID to the configured Matomo instance.

• When: on every frontend page load after measurement consent is granted, only if Matomo is configured.

• Service provider: InnoCraft Ltd — Terms of Service | Privacy Policy

Privacy Policy

This plugin stores data locally in your WordPress database only. No data is transmitted to the plugin author or any third-party service by this plugin itself.

Data stored locally

• Consent log table ( {prefix}darwin_gdpr_consent_log ): When a visitor saves their consent choices, the plugin records a SHA-256 hash of the visitor’s IP address, the browser user-agent string, and the encoded consent payload. No plain-text IP addresses are stored. Entries are automatically deleted after the configured retention period (default: 180 days).

• Aggregate metrics table ( {prefix}darwin_gdpr_metrics ): Stores daily totals of banner views and consent accepts as integer counts. No visitor identifiers of any kind are stored in this table.

• Plugin options: Localized content strings and appearance settings are stored in the WordPress options table. These contain no visitor data.

Third-party service data

When optional integrations are configured by the site administrator, scripts from third-party services are loaded in the visitor’s browser. Those services may collect data as described in their respective privacy policies, which are linked in the External Services section above. No data is sent to those services until the visitor grants the relevant consent category.

Site administrators should ensure their own privacy policy reflects the data practices described above, particularly the storage of hashed IP addresses and user-agent strings in the consent log.