The systems and processes a company uses to obtain, record, and honor a user's permissions regarding data collection and marketing communications — commonly implemented through a cookie consent banner or preference center on a website.
Why it matters
Consent management isn't just a legal checkbox — it's an operational system that has to actually enforce what a user chose (blocking a tracking script if they declined it, for instance), and a consent banner that doesn't functionally back up its own choices is a compliance liability, not a solution.
In a sentence
"We audited our consent management setup and found several tracking scripts were firing regardless of what a visitor selected in the cookie banner — a real compliance gap, not just a technical bug."
Related terms
- Often confused with: A cookie banner (a cookie banner is the visible interface a user interacts with; consent management is the broader system, including the banner, that actually records and enforces those choices across a site).