FMCG — Privacy Index - Nixon Digital

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FMCG · First edition · Scanned Aug to Oct 2026

Consent tools are everywhere in FMCG. Tracking before consent still is too.

200 websites scanned. On eight in ten, visitor data reaches Google, Meta, LinkedIn or other tech companies before the visitor has made any choice. Two in three have at least one clear high-risk finding, even though nine in ten run a consent tool.

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How findings are classified

High risk

Before consent, data goes to a party that uses it for advertising, social media or its own analytics, a third-party tracking cookie is set, or a font is loaded from an external server.

Potential risk

May be allowed, depending on a setup we cannot see from outside: analytics or monitoring run by a processor, security such as reCAPTCHA, or functional services such as chat and video.

Low risk

The consent tool, tag managers, the site’s own hosting and strictly necessary cookies for security or load balancing. Not counted as a finding.

Most common high-risk services before consent

Consent tools in use

Privacy score distribution

Average findings per site

Not enough data yet. Trend lines unlock from the second edition onward.

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Scope, method and limits

This edition covers 200 FMCG websites: food, beverage, household and personal care companies with more than 1,000 employees that are active in the European market.

We publish the selection criteria. We do not publish the list of companies.

What we did not measure

Public pages only. No logged-in areas, no customer portals, no apps.
Up to five pages per website, starting at the homepage. Not the full site.
A single moment in time, on the scan date. Websites change.
What third parties do with the data once they receive it.
Whether any special category data is involved. Our scanner cannot see that.

How we measured

01CohortCompanies selected against the published criteria for this sector.

02ScanClean browser session, empty cache, no stored cookies, European exit point, up to five pages.

03ClassifyEvery finding before consent rated high, potential or low risk against the published rules.

04ScoreA privacy score from 0 to 100, derived from the weighted number of findings.

05AggregateSector figures computed from the per-website results.

Limits of this measurement

Every browser-based measurement is a lower bound. What we did not observe is not proof that it does not happen.

And we do not establish unlawfulness. We measure what happens and place the rule beside it. That judgment belongs to a regulator or a court.

Who paid for this, and why that matters

Nixon Digital sells software that detects and resolves exactly the problems this research measures. We are not a neutral party and we are not going to pretend otherwise.

This study was funded entirely by us and commissioned by no one.

That is precisely why we publish the complete method and the aggregate figures openly: you should be able to check our work rather than take our word for it.

Research and analysis: Nixon Digital research team. Scan period: August to early October 2026. Method version: 2026-Q3.2.
Cite as: Nixon Digital Privacy Index, FMCG, edition 1 (scanned August to early October 2026, published 12 October 2026).
Aggregate figures and method are available under CC BY 4.0. Company-level data is not published.

FMCG — Privacy Index