Category : SEO Blog

Quebec’s Law 25 introduces crucial regulations regarding the handling of personal information by businesses. As your website consultant I want to provide you with some insights and suggestions to ensure your organization is on the right path towards compliance with this important legislation. If you are a Quebec business and have not taken steps towards compliance with Law 25 please read on.

Background on Law 25:

Law 25, also known as An Act to Modernize Legislative Provisions Respecting the Protection of Personal Information, aims to enhance privacy protections for individuals in Quebec. It sets out strict requirements for how organizations collect, use, and disclose personal information, with the goal of safeguarding the privacy rights of Quebec residents.

Key Steps for Compliance:

Although there are many steps and stages to being fully compliant, here are the steps that I suggest to work on immediately.

1. Designate a Privacy Officer: The first crucial step is to designate a privacy officer within your organization. This individual will be responsible for overseeing compliance with Law 25 and ensuring that your privacy practices align with the legislation.
2. Update Your Privacy Policy: Review and update your organization’s privacy policy to include the specific requirements outlined in Law 25. This will involve disclosing how personal information is collected, used, and stored, as well as any measures taken to protect this data.
3. Implement Cookie Consent Form: If your website or online platforms use cookies, it’s essential to implement a cookie consent form. This form should inform users about the use of cookies and obtain their consent before any data is collected.
4. Review Data Storage Practices: Assess how personal information is stored within your organization, including any data stored outside of Quebec. This may include cloud services, hosting providers, or third-party platforms like MailChimp, HubSpot, Quickbooks and others.  Ensure that you disclose this information in your privacy policy.

Compliance Deadlines:

It’s essential to prioritize compliance with Law 25 as soon as possible. While specific deadlines may vary depending on the nature of your business and the type of personal information you handle, the legislation is already in effect. Failure to comply could result in severe fines.

Examples of Fines for Non-Compliance:

Businesses found violating the legislation may face fines ranging from $15,000 to $100,000 in the case of a natural person. In all other cases, fines can range between. $15,000 to $25,000,000 or 4% of worldwide turnover for the previous year, whichever is greater. Fines range based on the offence type, from minor to very severe. See details here.

Next Steps:

I understand that navigating compliance with Law 25 can seem daunting. That’s why I’m here to support you through the process. While I am not specialized in privacy law and therefore cannot take responsibility for your compliance, I can provide guidance and assistance to help you take the necessary steps towards compliance.

I estimate approximately $400 of consulting work to assist with updating your privacy policy and implementing a cookie consent form, both in English and French. Additionally, we’ll discuss further steps, such as establishing an incident management plan and governance framework, as needed.

Please let me know if you would like to proceed, and designate a privacy officer within your organization. Together, we can work towards ensuring that your business meets the requirements of Law 25 and prioritizes the protection of personal information.

Thank you for entrusting me with your compliance needs. If you have any questions or concerns, don’t hesitate to reach out.

Jason Campbell

514-266-9229

The shift to tighter privacy has caused browsers to block third-party cookies. Safari and Firefox have blocked third-party cookies since 2013 and now Chrome, the browser with half of the global web traffic, has also chosen to phase out cookies in 2022 which raises concerns for online marketing. We have included a quick overview and recommend 2 articles linked below for more information on how the move to block third-party cookies will affect advertising on Google and Facebook publishing platforms.

Here is the first paragraph of the Vox.com/recode article which introduces the topic well:

Google announced that “third-party cookies are over — at least, as far as its ad networks and Chrome browser are concerned. This represents a significant change for the ad business and seems to be a step forward for privacy, but it’s also a limited one. It doesn’t mean that Google will stop collecting your data, and it doesn’t mean the company will stop using your data to target ads.”  – Source.

In a nutshell, third-party cookies improve targeting for online ad campaigns. A clear example is remarketing campaigns where a third-party cookie in your browser will trigger remarketing ads based on sites you have visited in the past. For this reason remarketing will be most affected by this change. Cookies are also used for advertising in the Google Display Network (GDN) where ads are displayed not only based on the context (the topic of the site it the ad is on) but on information from third-party cookies to determine what is relevant to a user.

Google uses cookies, but doesn’t need to. Google has enough first party data to continue providing similar services without using third-party cookies. Someone who wants to stay private and not be tracked will now more easily be able to avoid services that big advertising companies can get data from. So essentially you would not be able to target those users as accurately and not be able to do remarketing to those users who take steps to remain untracked. But you can still advertise using search ads which are keyword-based, contextual ads and Google and Facebook still have a wealth of first-party data to target ads on its publishing platforms. Note also that users can already opt out of Google ads personalization using Google’s ad settings.

“Google will still collect your first-party data — that is, what you do when you’re using its products, like YouTube and Search — and it will target ads to you based on it. That first-party data becomes even more valuable to advertisers as third-party data sources dry up. This is great for Google, whose platforms get billions of hits per day. In fact, the bulk of Google’s revenue comes from ads on Google Search — more than half of it, according to its most recent quarterly earnings report, and far more than it makes from its ad network that currently relies on third-party cookies. And because Google Search won’t be affected by the cookie ban, that data-based revenue stream will continue to flow.  – Source.

More reading on this topic:

The Death of the Third-Party Cookie: What Marketers Need to Know About Google’s Looming Privacy Pivots
https://blog.hubspot.com/marketing/third-party-cookie-phase-out
Hubspot put together a good overview of what third-party cookies are and how online marketing will adapt once they are phased out.

Google is done with cookies, but that doesn’t mean it’s done tracking you
https://www.vox.com/recode/2021/3/3/22311460/google-cookie-ban-search-ads-tracking
Focusses more on how Google will adapt to a third-party cookie ban

Red Carpet Web Promotion Dinner at Pasta Casareccia.
I had a great time last Friday with some of the RedCarpetWeb team!

-Jason

It has been a while since I’ve seen a big switch in factors that affect search engine ranking. SEMRush has released a report based on the scope of 600,000+ keywords, in order analyze the importance of ranking factors.  The results are that the number of direct website visits to your site is the most important factor!  So basically sites that already have a lot of traffic from people typing the URL in the address bar will rank higher in results. This is hard to take for someone trying to improve ranking by adjusting the website – as it is not an on-site factor.  But it makes sense that Google would show the most popular sites at the top.

Other factors that score higher than total referring domains are:

1. Time on site
2. Pages per session
3. Bounce rate

So if your site is engaging and people spend more time on it you also stand to benefit with a higher ranking.

The take away from this is that anything that could increase your direct visits will also increase your visits from organic search  because more direct visits will increase your position in search results.

See the report here: https://www.semrush.com/ranking-factors/

Ranking Factors Analyzed

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