Prior Consent
Consent that must be obtained before any data processing or cookie placement begins, not after.
Prior consent means obtaining the user’s agreement before any non-essential data processing takes place, not during or after. Under the ePrivacy Directive and GDPR, this means no analytics scripts, marketing pixels, or tracking cookies may fire on page load before the user has interacted with the consent mechanism and made an affirmative choice. The page must load in a consent-neutral state where only strictly necessary cookies are active.
Prior consent is a critical compliance requirement that many websites fail to implement correctly. Common violations include loading Google Analytics or Facebook Pixel before the consent banner appears, setting advertising cookies in the initial HTTP response headers, and relying on a consent banner that appears but does not actually block scripts until consent is given. Technical implementation requires a script-blocking mechanism that intercepts all non-essential resources until the CMP confirms user consent, and testing to verify that no unauthorized requests are made during the pre-consent state.