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Smart Local Youtube — Documentation

YouTube / Google

Smart Local Youtube exists to put a consent gate in front of one specific third party: YouTube, owned by Google. This page explains what data YouTube embeds transmit, what the plugin blocks, and the privacy trade-off of the thumbnail mode.

A YouTube embed is not a static image — it is an iframe that loads content directly from Google's servers. The moment that iframe renders in the browser, before the visitor ever clicks play:

  • Google receives the visitor's IP address
  • Google may set cookies (advertising and analytics, depending on the embed type)
  • Requests are made to YouTube/Google domains (youtube.com, googlevideo.com, doubleclick.net, and others)

Under the GDPR and the German DSGVO, this constitutes processing of personal data and transmission to a third country (the US). That requires the visitor's prior, informed consent. Embedding a video without it is the exact exposure this plugin removes.

Standard vs Privacy-Enhanced Embeds

YouTube offers a "privacy-enhanced mode" embed served from youtube-nocookie.com. It defers some cookie-setting until playback, but it still:

  • Contacts Google's servers on load
  • Transmits the visitor's IP

So it still requires consent. The plugin detects both youtube.com/embed and youtube-nocookie.com/embed (patterns 1 and 2) precisely so that switching to the nocookie domain does not silently bypass the consent requirement.

Until the visitor accepts, the plugin strips all detected YouTube code from the server-rendered HTML — iframes, the IFrame API script, and component/page-builder markup. The browser never receives the embed, so no request reaches Google and no YouTube cookie is set for the detected videos — unless you opt into the thumbnail mode described below. See How Consent Works.

The Thumbnail Privacy Trade-off

The inline placeholder can show the official YouTube poster image via the YouTube thumbnail mode, fetched from:

https://img.youtube.com/vi/{VIDEO_ID}/hqdefault.jpg

This request goes to Google before the visitor consents and therefore transmits their IP to Google — the same kind of contact the plugin otherwise prevents. It is provided for convenience but is off by default.

Recommendation: Use Single custom image or Per-video custom images with self-hosted images, or the generic Icon only mode, to keep the pre-consent page completely free of Google contact. Only enable YouTube thumbnails if your privacy policy explicitly discloses and permits it.

Compliance Checklist

  • Plugin enabled and detecting your embeds (verify with Debug Mode, logged in as a Super User)
  • Privacy policy menu item linked in the Content tab
  • Placeholder Image set to Icon only, Single custom image or Per-video custom images (not YouTube thumbnail) unless your policy permits pre-consent contact with Google
  • If geo-detection is on, you are comfortable with visitors outside your consent regions being auto-accepted, or you chose Show consent box (let visitor decide)
  • Consent text mentions that accepting loads content from YouTube and transmits data to Google
  • Caching configured so cached pages don't serve video code to non-consented visitors

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