What is the __pvi cookie?
This cookie stores data about the last visit to the site including the AID, lastTrackedVisitId, domain and time of the visit. Used for reporting only.
Our October 2026 scan found it on 37 sites (2% of the 2,450 we scanned), set before any consent.
- Purpose
- Analytics
- Belongs to
- Piano
- Set as
- First-party (under the site's own domain)
- Typical lifetime
- 1 day (vendor says: 1 day) — about what the vendor documents
Sites that set __pvi before consent
The highest-ranked 30 of 37 sites.
- cnn.com5 tracking companies
- cnbc.com9 tracking companies
- hbr.org12 tracking companies
- nbcnews.com20 tracking companies
- onet.pl6 tracking companies
- corriere.it12 tracking companies
- elmundo.es20 tracking companies
- fortune.com7 tracking companies
- nikkansports.com7 tracking companies
- blic.rs8 tracking companies
Show 20 more sites
- jutarnji.hr10 tracking companies
- variety.com9 tracking companies
- politico.com31 tracking companies
- rollingstone.com7 tracking companies
- slate.com20 tracking companies
- scmp.com17 tracking companies
- hollywoodreporter.com5 tracking companies
- zeit.de2 tracking companies
- smh.com.au6 tracking companies
- technologyreview.com6 tracking companies
- asahi.com41 tracking companies
- thehindu.com7 tracking companies
- today.com19 tracking companies
- billboard.com9 tracking companies
- tagesspiegel.de1 tracking company
- deadline.com5 tracking companies
- stuff.co.nz19 tracking companies
- politico.eu5 tracking companies
- boston.com11 tracking companies
- piano.io3 tracking companies
Related cookies
Other cookies from Piano.
How to stop it
Declining non-essential cookies in a site's consent banner should stop __pvi being set on later visits. Blocking third-party cookies in your browser settings stops the third-party kind everywhere, and clearing cookies for a site removes any it already set.
Description from the Open Cookie Database (Apache 2.0).
Understanding this page
- How cookie lifetimes work, and why a 13-month _ga matters
What a cookie's "expires" field actually controls, why Google Analytics ships a 2-year default that many sites cut down to 13 months, and how Safari's 7-day cap on script-set cookies changes the picture.
- First-party vs third-party cookies (and why "first-party" still tracks you)
What the distinction actually means technically, why browsers only block one of the two, and how CNAME cloaking, server-side tagging and cookies like _ga let sites keep tracking under their own domain.
- How to block or limit trackers
Browser privacy settings, content blockers, Global Privacy Control and clearing cookies compared honestly — what each one actually stops, what it doesn't, and what it costs you in return.