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IAB Europe

IAB Europe

IAB Europe is the trade association for digital advertising in Europe. The IAB Transparency & Consent Framework (TCF) script manages vendor consent records for GDPR compliance across participating advertising technology companies.

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Overview

IAB Europe is the trade association for digital advertising in Europe. The IAB Transparency & Consent Framework (TCF) provides a standardized protocol for communicating user consent choices to participating advertising technology vendors. The TCF script (CMP stub) is the technical implementation of this framework.

What This Script Does

  • Implements the __tcfapi JavaScript API that CMPs and ad tech vendors call to read and write consent signals
  • Stores the TC String (Transparency & Consent string) encoding the user's consent choices for each TCF-registered vendor and purpose
  • Sets the euconsent-v2 cookie containing the encoded TC String
  • Provides the addEventListener and getTCData commands that ad scripts use to check whether they have consent before processing data
  • Loads as a "stub" script that makes the __tcfapi available immediately, before the full CMP interface loads

Consent & Compliance

  • Consent category: Essential
  • GDPR/ePrivacy: The TCF stub is itself part of the consent management infrastructure. It does not collect user data or perform tracking — it stores and communicates the user's consent decisions. It is essential for GDPR compliance when using TCF-participating ad tech vendors.
  • CCPA: TCF is primarily a GDPR/ePrivacy framework. Some CMPs extend it for CCPA via the US Privacy String (usprivacy).

Should You Block This Without Consent?

No. The IAB TCF script is consent infrastructure — it manages and communicates consent decisions to other scripts. Blocking it would prevent your consent management platform from functioning correctly and would break consent enforcement for all TCF-participating vendors.

Is IAB Europe GDPR compliant?

IAB Europe's trackers are classified as essential (strictly necessary), so they are generally exempt from prior consent under the GDPR. You should still list them in your cookie policy and privacy notice so visitors know they are there.

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Consent Categories

Essential

Also Known As

IAB Europe TCFtransparency consent frameworkIAB TCF 2.0GDPR consent frameworkIAB Europe GDPRTCF vendor list

Industries

Marketing and AdvertisingBusiness and Consumer Services

Tracked Domains (1)

IAB Europe's trackers are rarely seen, seen on a small share of the sites ConsentStack has scanned. Scan your own site to see which of these are firing before consent.

consensu.orgConsent

consensu.org is a consent domain operated by IAB Europe, used to manage cookie consent and preferences. Seen on a small share of scanned sites.

Cookies IAB Europe Sets (1)

euconsent-v2

IAB Europe TCF v2 consent string set by any TCF-compliant CMP.

Frequently Asked Questions

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