Website Privacy Index 2026

Consent Mode v2 adoption

Google has required Consent Mode v2 for advertisers reaching the EEA since March 2024. Across 4,815 scanned sites, 9.2% showed a working signal. 44.1% were running Google tags with no Consent Mode signal at all.

This index covers restaurant, hospitality and independent ecommerce sites. It is not a sample of the web as a whole, and the figures should not be read as one. Every figure describes what an automated scan could observe on a public page. A site recorded as having no consent platform detected may run one the scanner could not see, and an absence of findings is not a clean bill of health.

Consent Mode status across the crawl

A site with no Google products has nothing for Consent Mode to govern, so it is counted separately rather than as a pass.

Working v2 signal observed442Google tags, no Consent Mode2,124No Google products detected2,249

Rawsoft Website Privacy Index · n = 4,815 · scanned January to February 2026

Show the data
StatusSites
Working v2 signal observed442
Google tags, no Consent Mode2,124
No Google products detected2,249

Where 4,815 sites land

Four in five sites had neither a consent platform nor a privacy preferences link the scanner could find.

12.6%Exposed80.0%Unprotected
GatedPartialExposedUnprotected

Rawsoft Website Privacy Index · n = 4,815 · scanned January to February 2026

Show the data
TierSitesShare
Gated611.3%
Partial2926.1%
Exposed60912.6%
Unprotected3,85380.0%

What the signal actually shows

The scan looks for the consent state Google's own tags transmit. When a site is running Consent Mode v2 properly, that state is visible in the request. When it isn't, Google tags still fire, they just carry no consent information with them.

That distinction matters for measurement as much as for compliance. Without the signal, modelled conversions don't backfill, and the gap shows up as missing revenue rather than as a privacy problem, which is why it so often goes unnoticed.

How this was measured

Each site was loaded the way a first-time visitor loads it. The scan recorded whether a consent platform appeared, when it appeared, what fired before anyone interacted with it, what fired after a refusal, and whether a privacy preferences link was reachable.

Tiers describe the mechanism observed, not the company. They are assigned from what the scan saw rather than from the score, because the score awards points where a vendor simply isn't present, and that would flatter sites that run no tags at all.

  • Gated. Consent platform detected, Consent Mode v2 observed, no tracking seen before consent or after denial
  • Partial. Consent platform detected, but with gaps: no Consent Mode v2 signal, or tracking seen anyway
  • Exposed. No consent platform detected, though a privacy or cookie preferences link was found
  • Unprotected. No consent platform and no privacy preferences link detected

Records: 4,904 scanned, 4,815 carrying a privacy result. Crawl window: January to February 2026. Nothing here is a legal conclusion, and no site is described as compliant or non-compliant.

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