Cookies and GDPR
Quote from szt on June 7, 2018, 8:00 amHello there,
I’m developing a (private) membership site with a forum. Asgaros looks great, so I decided to use that plugin.
I want the site to be as GDPR compliant as possible. For that matter I don’t want to place any cookies at all.But it seems that there where two cookies placed:
- asgarosforum_unique_id
- asgarosforum_unread_cleared
I couldn’t find anything about those cookies in the documentation. Or dindn’t I look good enough?
Is there a way to avoid placement of those cookies?With compliments,
Simon
Hello there,
I’m developing a (private) membership site with a forum. Asgaros looks great, so I decided to use that plugin.
I want the site to be as GDPR compliant as possible. For that matter I don’t want to place any cookies at all.
But it seems that there where two cookies placed:
- asgarosforum_unique_id
- asgarosforum_unread_cleared
I couldn’t find anything about those cookies in the documentation. Or dindn’t I look good enough?
Is there a way to avoid placement of those cookies?
With compliments,
Simon
Quote from mahoney on June 8, 2018, 9:09 amThese cookies basicly show if and wich forum is read yet. I’m not sure if it is in the docs, but to be acompiant with the GDPR, you can just place a bar wich tells people they agree to use cookies while using the site.
These cookies basicly show if and wich forum is read yet. I’m not sure if it is in the docs, but to be acompiant with the GDPR, you can just place a bar wich tells people they agree to use cookies while using the site.
Quote from Asgaros on June 9, 2018, 4:57 pmHello @szt
Yes, mahoney is right. Those cookies are used so the forum can mark topics/forums as read when users browsing through your forums. The unique_id-cookie is used for guests so they dont appear twice in the who-is-online-list.
In all of the mentioned cookies no personal information (like IP-adresses, etc) are stored and processed on the server/database so its absolute not possible to identify specific users with it.
If you disable the who is online?-functionality you can get rid of the asgarosforum_unique_id-cookie.
Hello @szt
Yes, mahoney is right. Those cookies are used so the forum can mark topics/forums as read when users browsing through your forums. The unique_id-cookie is used for guests so they dont appear twice in the who-is-online-list.
In all of the mentioned cookies no personal information (like IP-adresses, etc) are stored and processed on the server/database so its absolute not possible to identify specific users with it.
If you disable the who is online?-functionality you can get rid of the asgarosforum_unique_id-cookie.
Quote from szt on June 10, 2018, 7:31 pmAnd what about the other cookie (the ‘unread_cleared’ one)? I’d rather have no cookies at all…
And what about the other cookie (the ‘unread_cleared’ one)? I’d rather have no cookies at all…
Quote from Asgaros on June 11, 2018, 12:48 amWithout that cookie it would be not possible anymore for users to see which topics/posts are new and which ones they already have visited.
If you dont want to use this feature you can have a look into the following file:
wp-content/plugins/asgaros-forum/includes/forum-unread.php
Find this code:
public static function markTopicRead() { self::$excludedItems[self::$asgarosforum->current_topic] = intval(self::$asgarosforum->get_lastpost_in_topic(self::$asgarosforum->current_topic)->id); if (self::$userID) { update_user_meta(self::$userID, 'asgarosforum_unread_exclude', self::$excludedItems); } else { setcookie('asgarosforum_unread_exclude', maybe_serialize(self::$excludedItems), 2147483647); } }And replace it with this:
public static function markTopicRead() { self::$excludedItems[self::$asgarosforum->current_topic] = intval(self::$asgarosforum->get_lastpost_in_topic(self::$asgarosforum->current_topic)->id); if (self::$userID) { update_user_meta(self::$userID, 'asgarosforum_unread_exclude', self::$excludedItems); } }
Without that cookie it would be not possible anymore for users to see which topics/posts are new and which ones they already have visited.
If you dont want to use this feature you can have a look into the following file:
wp-content/plugins/asgaros-forum/includes/forum-unread.php
Find this code:
public static function markTopicRead() { self::$excludedItems[self::$asgarosforum->current_topic] = intval(self::$asgarosforum->get_lastpost_in_topic(self::$asgarosforum->current_topic)->id); if (self::$userID) { update_user_meta(self::$userID, 'asgarosforum_unread_exclude', self::$excludedItems); } else { setcookie('asgarosforum_unread_exclude', maybe_serialize(self::$excludedItems), 2147483647); } }
And replace it with this:
public static function markTopicRead() { self::$excludedItems[self::$asgarosforum->current_topic] = intval(self::$asgarosforum->get_lastpost_in_topic(self::$asgarosforum->current_topic)->id); if (self::$userID) { update_user_meta(self::$userID, 'asgarosforum_unread_exclude', self::$excludedItems); } }