What is the _sp_id.* cookie?
Stores user information that is created when a user first visits a site and updated on subsequent visits. It is used to identify users and track the users activity across a domain. This cookie stores a unique identifier for each user, a unique identifier for the users current session, the number of visits a user has made to the site, the timestamp of the users first visit, the timestamp of their previous visit and the timestamp of their current visit.
Our October 2026 scan found it on 24 sites (1% of the 2,450 we scanned), set before any consent.
- Purpose
- Analytics
- Belongs to
- Snowplow
- Set as
- First-party on 96% of sites, third-party on 4%
- Typical lifetime
- 13 months (vendor says: 2 years) — shorter than the vendor documents
- Name
- A family of cookies: the part after _sp_id. varies by site or account.
Sites that set _sp_id.* before consent
The highest-ranked 24 of 24 sites.
- tradingview.com2 tracking companies
- pexels.com4 tracking companies
- elconfidencial.com6 tracking companies
- digikala.com1 tracking company
- publi24.ro3 tracking companies
- xfinity.com8 tracking companies
- lego.com2 tracking companies
- surfshark.com1 tracking company
- technologyreview.com6 tracking companies
- hindustantimes.com36 tracking companies
Show 14 more sites
- capitalone.com6 tracking companies
- nrk.no0 tracking companies
- yr.no0 tracking companies
- aviasales.com3 tracking companies
- wistia.com3 tracking companies
- bitly.com4 tracking companies
- yle.fi1 tracking company
- island.io17 tracking companies
- uiowa.edu11 tracking companies
- sports.ru3 tracking companies
- livemint.com20 tracking companies
- uxfeedback.ru3 tracking companies
- aviasales.ru0 tracking companies
- rusprofile.ru2 tracking companies
How to stop it
Declining non-essential cookies in a site's consent banner should stop _sp_id.* 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.