Benjamin Drocourt, Director of Commercial Services, Boursorama
Cyril Bourbon, Director of Web Media, Boursorama

Managing consent in the GDPR era: a revolution or evolution for news publishers?

BD – In my opinion, it is more an evolution: a movement which cleans up the market. Being involved in both News and Banking, we obviously tackled the topic head on. After starting to collect consent on our website and not activating cookies until we had obtained it, we saw no loss in readers nor data. Saying that, Boursorama is a particular type of news media with 75% live traffic and an average of 7 page views per visit. No huge changes for the time being, but that could all change with the ePrivacy regulation.

Some believe that the current debate shows that cookies have reached their limit…

BD – The projects concerning IDs and common logs which are currently being studied represent a fantastic opportunity for progress in our industry, but I think that cookies still have a long life ahead of them. However, the ePrivacy regulation, which remains a little unclear in both substance and form, could cast doubt on all that.
CB – Yes, the process is basic but has proven to be well suited to the realities of digital technology and even to the GDPR. We see the proof with the more sales-orientated landing pages that we also handle: proper cookie management allows you to comply with the GDPR without greatly affecting their impact. And more importantly, for the time being, we don’t really see any alternatives on the horizon…

What is your view on the solution offered by Commanders Act?

BD – The major benefit of TagCommander for us is that it’s a purely technical solution, truly neutral where others are sometimes both judge and jury. The other benefit is operational, since the TMS (Tag Management System) and CMP (Consent Management Platform) are combined into a single solution.