Over a quarter of small-business sites fire ad pixels before visitor consent

A scan of 23,367 small-business websites across seven EU countries found that 28.6% fired advertising pixels before visitors made any consent choice. Google Ads and Meta's pixel were the most common offenders, with several smaller platforms appearing less often. Many affected sites had multiple ad pixels running at once, and 60.8% of them showed no cookie banner at all. The researchers attribute this largely to owners setting up advertising tools through one-click integrations without configuring consent. The findings highlight a gap between EU rules, which require prior consent for non-essential trackers, and common small-business practice.