As stated in our Google Consent Mode tech doc, “Google also supports the IAB's TCF framework with its ad systems. Consent Mode is meant to be used by advertisers not using a TCF CMP implementation. However, we also recommend implementing the Consent Mode default state into your website if you are using a TCF implementation. This recommendation is due to the fact that the necessary consent signals for ad_user_data and ad_personalization in some Google Tags cannot be guaranteed through the TCF API for now, owing to varying network loading times.”
That means we recommend following Step 1 of the documentation, even if you are using TCF.
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