Customers with visitors in California ask how to set Happierleads up alongside the CCPA/CPRA, CIPA and the Global Privacy Control (GPC) signal. Short answer: identifying the people who visit your own website is legal in California too. You need a few things in place on your site, and this article lists them in the order people usually ask.

GPC is a browser signal that tells a website "do not sell or share my personal information". California treats it as a valid opt-out request.

Our pixel does not read the GPC signal by itself. The usual way to honour it is your consent manager: OneTrust, Cookiebot, CookieYes, Complianz and most others detect GPC and hold back every script in the "sale or share" / marketing category for that visitor. With our script in that category, GPC is handled for you.

No consent manager? In Google Tag Manager, create a Custom JavaScript variable that returns navigator.globalPrivacyControl === true, and add a trigger exception so the Happierleads tag does not fire when that variable is true.

"Your Privacy Choices" and opt-out requests

CIPA (California Invasion of Privacy Act)

CIPA is an older wiretapping law that has recently been used in lawsuits against websites running tracking and chat tools without telling visitors. What the businesses we work with do about it is simple: say clearly in the privacy policy and cookie notice that you use a visitor identification tool, and, if you run a consent banner, load the tool through it (checklist points 1 to 3).

Virginia, Colorado, Connecticut, Texas, Oregon and the other states with privacy laws follow the same pattern: tell people in your privacy policy, respect opt-outs (most also accept GPC), and have a processor agreement with your vendors. The checklist above covers them as well.

When our script waits for consent, visitors who decline or ignore the banner are not identified, so you will see fewer leads than without a banner. That is expected, not a fault.

Is it legal to identify website visitors?

Just so you know, this isn't legal advice — we're not allowed to give legal advice — but it's what we know from the thousands of businesses using Happierleads.

How to set up Happierleads for California visitors: privacy policy, cookie notice, consent manager category, the GPC signal, opt-out requests, CIPA and the DPA.

California privacy setup: CCPA/CPRA, CIPA, GPC and "Your Privacy Choices"

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