The short answer is... yes, most likely. Cookie tracking is getting more scrutiny across the board, and the direction it's moving is toward more compliance, not less. This used to feel like a state-specific issue, most notably California and the UK. That pattern is now showing up in conversations with publishers and regional businesses well beyond those states, regardless of what their own state law specifically requires. What counted as "enough" a year ago may not hold up today, and it's worth revisiting your setup even if your state hasn't passed anything new.
What's driving a lot of the current conversation is how these cases are starting to surface: firms are using AI to scrape large numbers of websites at once, flag any site running tracking pixels without a clear notice or consent mechanism, and follow up with legal claims. We've seen this happen firsthand with one of our clients. It's a good prompt to check in on your own cookie consent banner and what's actually implemented on your site, rather than assume it's still covered.
Based on what we're seeing, things are heading toward at least a baseline of notifying your audience that they're being tracked, though what's actually required depends on your state and your specific setup.
Why this matters
The exposure isn't tied to one platform. It applies to any tracking pixel or tag running on your site, including the HubSpot pixel, Meta pixel, GA4, the LinkedIn tag, and similar tools.
There's also an important distinction in how banners work, and it matters for compliance:
- An informational banner tells visitors they're being tracked. It notifies, but the tracking scripts typically still fire on page load, whether or not someone clicks "accept."
- A consent-gating banner gives visitors real choices, such as accept all, necessary only, or reject all, and controls whether tracking scripts fire based on that choice.
These are not interchangeable, and a banner controlled by one platform doesn't necessarily govern scripts from other tools running on the same site. A HubSpot banner, for example, likely doesn't control what GA4 does.
What to review
Before deciding on next steps, it's worth taking stock of a few things:
- What tracking tools and tags are actually installed on your site.
- Whether your current banner, if you have one, matches what your privacy policy says.
- Whether that banner is informational only, or whether it actually gates cookies based on visitor choice.
- Whether there are scripts running outside your primary platform (HubSpot, for example) that also need to be accounted for.
What we recommend
This is a legal and technical decision, not a marketing one, so our recommendation is to loop in the right people before making changes:
- Talk to your lawyer about which laws apply to your audience and what they require, based on your state.
- Talk to your website support team about the best way to implement a banner that matches your privacy policy and your actual tracking setup.
- Revisit your privacy policy to confirm it reflects what's really installed on your site today.
- Decide, with that input, what type of banner, informational or consent-gating, fits your jurisdictions and tech stack.
If you're on HubSpot, there are cookie banners available, whether that's the informational type or a consent-gating one. What we can't do is tell you what your legal requirements are; that determination belongs to you.