TL;DR
- Cookie law covers any technology that identifies or tracks a visitor, so local storage, tracking pixels and fingerprinting count too.
- Chrome DevTools shows all of it in two tabs: Application and Network.
- Sort each item into one of four categories, then check that only strictly necessary ones survive a "Reject all".
Someone asks if your site is cookie compliant. You open the cookie list, see a few entries and it looks fine. The catch is scope. As cookie law basics explains, the rules apply to anything that identifies a user or tracks behaviour, whatever the storage type.
Step 1: Start clean
Open a private window, open DevTools, then load the page. Don't touch the banner yet.
Step 2: Check each storage type
In the Application tab, open each item under Storage: Cookies, Local storage, Session storage and IndexedDB. Note each name and the domain that set it. HttpOnly cookies appear here too, even though page scripts can't read them.
For a quick list of storage names, type these into the Console:
Object.keys(localStorage) Object.keys(sessionStorage) Step 3: Check who the page talks to
In the Network tab, type domain:yoursite.com into the filter box and tick Invert to hide your own requests. What remains are third parties, such as connect.facebook.net for the Meta Pixel. Pixels often store nothing on your domain, so this is where they show up.
Step 4: Sort what you found
| Found | Category | Before consent? |
|---|---|---|
| Login or basket cookie | Strictly necessary | Allowed |
| Saved language setting | Preferences | Hold |
_ga cookie | Analytics | Hold |
_fbp cookie, Meta Pixel requests | Marketing | Hold |
When in doubt, pick the stricter category. A marketing tracker labelled "necessary" won't survive a review.
Step 5: Test the "no"
Click Reject all, reload and repeat Steps 2 and 3. Only strictly necessary items should remain.
Where Seers AI fits
This check is a snapshot of one page. The Seers AI consent platform does it across your whole site: it scans for first- and third-party cookies, sorts them by purpose, keeps non-essential scripts blocked until a visitor agrees and passes each choice to Google tags through Consent Mode v2.
