ZOHO

Overview

ZOHO is a comprehensive business operations software suite covering CRM, email, helpdesk, project management, and marketing automation. On the web, Zoho scripts most commonly appear as the Zoho SalesIQ live chat widget and Zoho PageSense (A/B testing and heatmaps), but the broader Zoho ecosystem also deploys web-to-lead tracking forms, Zoho Campaigns email subscription widgets, and visitor intelligence tools. Sites embedding any Zoho product will encounter scripts that serve both functional support purposes and marketing data collection.

What This Script Does

Zoho SalesIQ (live chat) loads from salesiq.zoho.com or salesiq.zoho.in and injects a chat widget into the page. The SalesIQ script sets a siq_visitor_id cookie (typically 1-year expiry, first-party) to identify returning visitors and a siq_session cookie (session-scoped) for the current conversation. Beyond chat, SalesIQ tracks visitor behavior — page views, time on page, scroll depth, and navigation paths — to provide agents with visitor context. This behavioral intelligence feeds into lead scoring models within Zoho CRM.

Web-to-lead tracking fires events when visitors interact with embedded Zoho CRM forms. On form submission, visitor data (name, email, phone, page URL, referrer, IP-derived geolocation) is sent to crm.zoho.com and creates or updates a lead record. A zalert or zia cookie may be set to track the visitor post-submission, enabling Zoho CRM to record subsequent page visits from the same browser and attribute them to the known lead.

Zoho PageSense loads from pagesense.zoho.com and sets cookies for A/B test bucket assignment and heatmap session recording. The ps_test_id cookie (30-day expiry) assigns the visitor to experiment variants. Session recordings capture mouse movements, clicks, and scroll behavior for UX analysis.

Zoho Campaigns embeds may set additional cookies for email subscription forms and track form interactions for campaign attribution.

Network requests from Zoho scripts reach analytics.zoho.com, cs.zoho.com, and regional equivalents (zoho.eu for EU-hosted instances). Data is processed by Zoho Corporation, headquartered in Austin, Texas, and Chennai, India.

Consent & Compliance

Zoho scripts span marketing and functional consent categories depending on which product is deployed. The live chat support functionality in SalesIQ can be justified under legitimate interest or the functional exemption for services explicitly requested by the visitor — however, the visitor intelligence and lead scoring layers go beyond support and constitute marketing profiling.

Under GDPR, visitor tracking for lead scoring and CRM profiling requires explicit consent (Article 6(1)(a)). The ePrivacy Directive requires consent for any non-strictly-necessary cookies, including siq_visitor_id (persistent, analytics/marketing purpose) and PageSense A/B test cookies. Under CCPA/CPRA, visitor tracking for sales pipeline purposes is personal information processing that must be disclosed, and sharing behavioral data with CRM systems for commercial purposes may constitute a sale or share.

Zoho offers EU-hosted infrastructure (Zoho EU) that keeps data within the EEA under GDPR. Sites should verify whether their Zoho account is configured on EU infrastructure and confirm applicable Standard Contractual Clauses if US infrastructure is used.

Should You Block This Without Consent?

Conditional. Zoho's live chat widget for customer support can be considered functional if used solely for visitor-initiated support conversations without behavioral tracking. However, visitor intelligence (SalesIQ lead scoring), CRM form tracking, PageSense session recording, and Zoho Campaigns marketing features are all marketing or analytics activities that require prior consent. Block marketing and analytics features; if SalesIQ is used purely for support chat, it may be loaded on legitimate interest, but this requires careful configuration to disable its tracking components.