DocumentationExperience PlatformData Collection

defaultConsent

Last update: Fri Sep 19 2025 00:00:00 GMT+0000 (Coordinated Universal Time)

CREATED FOR:

  • Developer

The defaultConsent property determines how you handle data collection consent before you call the setConsent command. This property is valuable when you don’t want to accidentally collect data from individuals who reside in areas where consent is required before collecting data.

If you have a visitor that is not within the jurisdiction of General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), the default consent could be set to in. Visitors inside the jurisdiction of GDPR could have their default consent set to pending. Your Consent Management Platform (CMP) can detect the customer’s region and provide the flag gdprApplies to IAB TCF 2.0. This flag can be used to set the default consent.

Set the defaultConsent string property to the desired consent level when running the configure command. This property is case-sensitive, and supports only the following three values: "in", "out", and "pending". If you attempt to use any other value, the library throws an error. If not set in the configure command, the default value is in.

IMPORTANT
The defaultConsent value does not persist between page loads. Make sure that you set the desired default consent every time that you call the configure command.
alloy("configure", {
  datastreamId: "ebebf826-a01f-4458-8cec-ef61de241c93",
  orgId: "ADB3LETTERSANDNUMBERS@AdobeOrg",
  defaultConsent: "pending"
});
  • in: Data collection operates normally until the user opts out.
  • out: Data is permanently discarded until the user opts in.
  • pending: Data is stored locally until the user opts in using the setConsent command.
NOTE
Although Adobe plans to build a more robust set of purposes or categories that correspond to Adobe capabilities and product offerings, the current implementation is an all-or-nothing approach to opt-in. This limitation only applies to the Web SDK and not other Adobe JavaScript libraries.

The Web SDK offers two complementary consent options:

  • defaultConsent (this page): Determines the default consent preferences.
  • setConsent: Capture the consent preferences of visitors.

When used together, these settings can lead to different data collection and cookie setting results, depending on their configured values.

See the table below to understand when data collection occurs and when cookies are set, based on consent settings.

defaultConsent
setConsent
Data collection occurs
Web SDK sets browser cookies
in
in
Yes
Yes
in
out
No
Yes
in
Not set
Yes
Yes
pending
in
Yes
Yes
pending
out
No
Yes
pending
Not set
No
No
out
in
Yes
Yes
out
out
No
Yes
out
Not set
No
No

See Adobe Experience Platform Web SDK cookies for a list of cookies that the library sets.

NOTE
Identity and consent cookies are set even if a visitor opts out of tracking. These cookies are necessary to honor their data collection preferences.

Some CMPs provide the ability to determine whether General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) applies to the customer. If you want to assume consent for customers where GDPR does not apply, you can use the gdprApplies flag in a TCF API call. For example:

var alloyConfiguration = { ... };
window.__tcfapi('getTCData', 2, function (tcData, success) {
  if (success) {
    alloyConfiguration.defaultConsent = tcData.gdprApplies ? "pending" : "in";
    window.alloy("configure", alloyConfiguration);
  }
});

In the above code block, the configure command is called after the tcData is obtained from the TCF API. If gdprApplies is true, default consent is set to pending. If gdprApplies is false, default consent is set to in. Be sure to fill in the alloyConfiguration variable with your configuration.

See Consent settings in the Web SDK tag extension documentation to learn how to perform these actions using tags.

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