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GDPRess | Eliminate external requests to increase GDPR compliance

This plugin hasn’t been tested with the latest 3 major releases of WordPress. It may no longer be maintained or supported and may have compatibility issues when used with more recent versions of WordPress.

GDPRess | Eliminate external requests to increase GDPR compliance

Description

In January, 2022 a German court ruled that a website owner was in breach of GDPR and should pay a € 100,- fine, because embedded Google Fonts were used, essentially transferring the user’s personal data (IP address) without the user’s prior consent.

What’s embedding?

When an external (i.e. loaded from another server, besides your own) resource is embedded into a webpage, it basically means that the resource behaves as if it’s loaded from the same server hosting the webpage.

Why is using embedded resources in breach of GDPR?

Because of the way the internet works. When a browser (i.e. computer) requests a file (e.g. an image or a font file), the server needs the IP address of that computer to send it back. All these requests (including the IP address) are logged in a so-called access.log.

Once this IP address leaves the European Union, your website is violating the GDPR.

What does this plugin do?

GDPRess scans your homepage for 3rd party scripts (JS) and stylesheets (CSS), and:

  • Allows you to download or exclude them from downloading,
  • Parses the stylesheets for loaded font files, downloads them, and rewrites the stylesheet to use the local copies,
  • Makes sure the local copies of each script/stylesheet are used in your site’s frontend.

In short, it makes sure no requests are made to external/embedded/3rd party scripts and stylesheets.

Screenshots

  • GDPRess’ Start screen, simply click Scan Website to start.
  • After running the initial scan, external requests are listed. Exclude a file when e.g. you suspect it might not work properly when it’s downloaded.
  • Google Analytics is automatically excluded, because simply downloading the file is not enough to use it in compliance with GDPR. Click on the link in the tooltip for more information.
  • Google Fonts is supported, but when many font families and/or font styles are detected, GDPRess will offer an alternative approach to optimize the request.
  • When the selected files are downloaded, the URLs of the local copies are listed.

Installation

  1. Upload the plugin files to the /wp-content/plugins/gdpr-press directory, or install the plugin through the WordPress plugins screen directly.
  2. Activate the plugin through the ‘Plugins’ screen in WordPress
  3. Use the Settings -> GDPRess screen to configure the plugin

FAQ

Can I remove/preload stylesheets and/or scripts with this plugin?

No, because there are other plugins (like Asset Cleanup or Autoptimize) that are already excellent at that.

GDPRess downloaded a stylesheet/script, but I’m still seeing requests to font files loaded by the stylesheet?

GDPRess parses the stylesheet for defined src urls. But if it somehow missed it, I’d love to hear about that, because that might be a bug. Please head over to the support forum and submit a ticket, and include the full URL to the external stylesheet.

Will this plugin allow me to use Google Analytics in compliance with GDPR?

No, because much more is needed than just downloading analytics.js/gtag.js to your server. To use Google Analytics in compliance with GDPR, you need CAOS Pro.

Reviews

Januari 3, 2024 1 reply
The plugin works as expected for me – even under WordPress 6.4. It’s a great addition to OMGF.I very much hope that the plugin will continue to be maintained and updated.
Juni 28, 2023 1 reply
Used it to localize Font Awesome CSS and font files. Works like a charm. Just perfect! Thank you for your hard work @daanvandenbergh
Nopémber 4, 2022 1 reply
Hey man, I host a page for a friend and with 3 kids and building a house, I find it hard to keep up with German legislation and keeping the page legal. The plugin you wrote solved the problem in no time and for free. Absolutely amazing. Very grateful!!!
Oktober 23, 2022 1 reply
Great plugin. my Consent Tool no longer recognises external downloads from Font Awsome!!!! Wonderfully easy to install and set up
Séptémber 5, 2022 1 reply
Running without Theme on an Oxygen Framework and works very well. A must-have in times like these, where you getting sued because of using remote Google Fonts.
Read all 9 reviews

Contributors & Developers

“GDPRess | Eliminate external requests to increase GDPR compliance” is open source software. The following people have contributed to this plugin.

Contributors

“GDPRess | Eliminate external requests to increase GDPR compliance” has been translated into 4 locales. Thank you to the translators for their contributions.

Translate “GDPRess | Eliminate external requests to increase GDPR compliance” into your language.

Interested in development?

Browse the code, check out the SVN repository, or subscribe to the development log by RSS.

Changelog

1.2.3

  • Fixed: call to undefined function download_url().

1.2.2

  • Fixed: GDPRess now runs before OMGF/CAOS, so e.g. OMGF Pro can optimize previously externally hosted stylesheets.

1.2.1

  • Fixed: Protocol (//) and Root (/) relative URLs shouldn’t be interpreted as external URLs.
  • Fixed: Let CAOS/OMGF handle their files, if these plugins are active.

1.2.0

  • Added: Run a quick scan on each page to see if new external (3rd party) requests are present on that page!
  • Added: Test Mode (enabled by Default) to allow users to first test the optimizations before releasing them to the public.
  • Fixed: Don’t use WP_Filesystem to get and put file contents.

1.1.0

  • Added: Google Fonts support
    • When many Font Families or Font Styles are detected, GDPR Press will suggest to use OMGF to optimize the request before downloading it.
  • Fixed several bugs, notices and warnings.

1.0.2

  • Added: tooltip next to success message.
  • Fixed: tooltip-icon line height.

1.0.1

  • Fixed: Conflicts with several caching/optimization plugins:
    • Autoptimize
    • WP Rocket
    • W3 Total Cache
    • WP Optimize
  • Fixed: several warnings and notices.

1.0

  • First release!