Cookie Consent Management with Fullstory

Fullstory can integrate with cookie consent management solutions to respect user privacy preferences and help you maintain compliance with privacy regulations like GDPR, CCPA, and LGPD. Depending on your technical setup and consent management platform, you have multiple options for controlling when and how Fullstory captures data based on user consent.

This article covers three main approaches for integrating Fullstory with cookie consent management:

• Pre-built integrations
• Tag manager deployment with consent triggers
• Custom implementation using Fullstory APIs

Pre-built Integrations

The easiest way to integrate Fullstory with a cookie consent management platform is through a pre-built integration. Fullstory currently offers an official integration with OneTrust, one of the leading consent management platforms.

With the OneTrust integration, you can control Fullstory data capture based on the consent categories configured in your OneTrust cookie banner. OneTrust's Cookie Auto-Blocking feature can automatically prevent Fullstory from loading until users provide appropriate consent. See our complete OneTrust integration guide for detailed setup instructions.

If you're using OneTrust, this is the recommended approach as it requires minimal technical configuration and automatically handles consent state changes.

Tag Manager Deployment with Consent Triggers

If you deploy Fullstory through a tag management system like Google Tag Manager (GTM), you can use consent-based triggers to control when the Fullstory tag fires. This approach works with any cookie consent solution that integrates with your tag manager.

Google Tag Manager with Consent Triggers

When using GTM, you can configure the Fullstory tag to only fire after users have provided consent. This is done by:

1. Setting up your cookie consent banner to update consent state in GTM
2. Creating a trigger in GTM based on that consent state
3. Configuring the Fullstory tag to use that consent-based trigger

See our Google Tag Manager integration guide for instructions on deploying Fullstory through GTM.

Google Consent Mode

Google's Consent Mode provides a standardized way to adjust how tags behave based on user consent choices. When properly configured, GTM can automatically manage which tags fire based on consent status.

To use Fullstory with Google Consent Mode:

1. Implement Google Consent Mode on your website
2. Configure your cookie consent banner to update consent signals
3. In GTM, configure the Fullstory tag with appropriate consent settings (typically requires "analytics_storage" consent)

See Google's Consent Mode documentation for detailed implementation guidance. This approach provides flexibility without requiring code changes to your website, making it easier to adjust consent logic as your requirements evolve.

Custom Implementation using Fullstory APIs

For maximum control and customization, you can use Fullstory's JavaScript APIs to programmatically control data capture based on your own consent management logic.

Delaying Capture on Startup

You can prevent Fullstory from starting data capture automatically by using the window['_fs_capture_on_startup'] configuration option. This allows you to wait for user consent before beginning capture:

1. Set window['_fs_capture_on_startup'] = false before the Fullstory snippet loads
2. Display your cookie consent banner to users
3. When consent is granted, call the Fullstory start() API to begin capturing

Shutdown and Restart APIs

Fullstory also provides APIs to stop and restart data capture dynamically:

• shutdown() - Immediately stops data capture
• start() or restart() - Begins or resumes data capture

These APIs allow you to respond to consent changes in real-time, such as when users update their cookie preferences. See our guide on Using the Fullstory API to control data capture for detailed examples.

Consent-Based Element Capture

In addition to controlling whether Fullstory captures at all, you can also use the Consent API to selectively capture certain elements only when users have provided consent. This allows you to capture basic analytics data by default while requiring consent for more sensitive elements. See our guide on Capture elements with consent for detailed implementation instructions.

Developer Documentation

For complete API reference and implementation examples, see the Fullstory developer documentation:

• Manually delay data capture
• Browser API overview