Dailymotion

Overview

Dailymotion is a video hosting and streaming platform founded in Paris in 2005 and owned by Vivendi since 2015. It is one of the largest video platforms in Europe, with significant audiences in France, Germany, and the Middle East, and serves as a YouTube alternative for publishers who prefer a European-operated platform or need content flexibility. Dailymotion provides an embeddable video player that can be integrated on third-party sites, with advertising capabilities built directly into the player. Unlike Vimeo, Dailymotion's embedded player includes an ad-monetization layer: it serves pre-roll and mid-roll video ads using audience cookies for targeting. This dual nature — functional video player plus advertising platform — places Dailymotion in a "functional + marketing" category that requires careful consent handling.

What This Script Does

Script Files and Domains

The Dailymotion embed uses an <iframe> pointing to https://www.dailymotion.com/embed/video/{video_id}. Player JavaScript loads from geo.dailymotion.com and static2.dmcdn.net (Dailymotion's CDN). Video streams are delivered from proxy{N}.dailymotion.com and Akamai CDN. Advertising resources load from geo.dailymotion.com/player/ads and connect to ad servers including securepubads.g.doubleclick.net (Google IMA SDK) and Dailymotion's own programmatic stack. Telemetry fires to www.dailymotion.com/log.

Cookies Set

• dmvk — Dailymotion's primary visitor identifier. Persistent, 13-month expiry. Set on dailymotion.com. Tracks viewing history across Dailymotion-hosted content for content recommendations and ad targeting within the player.
• v1st — First visit timestamp cookie. Persistent, 1-year expiry. Records the user's first ever visit to Dailymotion for audience recency segmentation.
• ts — Timestamp of most recent visit to Dailymotion. Session rolling.
• ss — Session state cookie. Session-scoped.
• lang — Language preference cookie. Persistent.
• Ad targeting cookies from Google IMA SDK (loaded within the player iframe): __gads, IDE (DoubleClick advertising ID, 2-year expiry), DSID for signed-in Google users.

Video Player Functionality

The player loads video content from Dailymotion's CDN, supports adaptive bitrate streaming (HLS/DASH), and provides standard playback controls. It fires playback telemetry to Dailymotion for view counting and content analytics: play, pause, seek, 25%/50%/75%/100% completion checkpoints, fullscreen, share.

Advertising Layer

The Dailymotion player integrates Google's IMA (Interactive Media Ads) SDK to serve VAST/VPAID pre-roll and mid-roll video ads. The IMA SDK fires its own cookies (__gads, IDE) for ad targeting. Ad requests go to securepubads.g.doubleclick.net with targeting parameters including viewer interests, geographic location, and device type. This means even a Dailymotion "functional" embed also loads Google advertising infrastructure.

Partner API

Dailymotion offers a Player API (JavaScript bridge) for programmatic control. Publishers can call player.play(), player.pause(), player.seek(time), and listen for events via player.on('video_start', handler).

Consent & Compliance

Category: Functional / Marketing

Dailymotion occupies a dual category because the embedded player serves two distinct purposes:

1. Functional: Delivering video content requested by the visitor.
2. Marketing: Serving targeted video advertising using audience cookies (including Google IMA SDK cookies).

Under GDPR and ePrivacy, the functional video delivery aspect may not require consent, but the advertising layer definitively does. The French CNIL has actively regulated French video platforms — Dailymotion's home market — and has issued guidance that advertising cookies require consent regardless of whether they are served inside an embedded iframe. The IDE DoubleClick cookie set by the IMA SDK has been the subject of multiple CNIL enforcement actions against Google.

Under CCPA, the advertising data collected by the IMA SDK within the Dailymotion player constitutes sharing personal information for behavioral advertising.

Dailymotion operates as a French entity (Vivendi subsidiary) and is subject to GDPR directly as an EU-based data controller.

Should You Block This Without Consent?

Conditional. If you can configure Dailymotion embeds without advertising (using the no-autoplay and ad-free parameters, or a paid publisher account with ads disabled), the player can be treated as functional and loaded without a consent gate. If the player includes targeted advertising via the Google IMA SDK — which is the default for monetized embeds — it must be gated behind marketing consent. The recommended pattern is a click-to-load facade: display a static thumbnail until the visitor explicitly activates the player, at which point advertising consent can be confirmed or the player loaded in a limited (non-ad) mode.