What is the ak_bmsc cookie?
Cookie used to optimize performance, and to improve the user experience, on Akamai websites.
Our October 2026 scan found it on 105 sites (4% of the 2,450 we scanned), set before any consent.
- Purpose
- Functional
- Belongs to
- Akamai
- Set as
- First-party on 99% of sites, third-party on 1%
- Typical lifetime
- Under a day (vendor says: 1 hour or longer)
Sites that set ak_bmsc before consent
The highest-ranked 30 of 105 sites.
- microsoft.com2 tracking companies
- adobe.com0 tracking companies
- afternic.com0 tracking companies
- godaddy.com0 tracking companies
- webex.com4 tracking companies
- oracle.com2 tracking companies
- mobile.de0 tracking companies
- autodesk.com6 tracking companies
- dell.com12 tracking companies
- amazon.co.uk1 tracking company
Show 20 more sites
- ea.com1 tracking company
- washingtonpost.com12 tracking companies
- amazon.co.za32 tracking companies
- indiatimes.com18 tracking companies
- mdpi.com1 tracking company
- amazon.fr1 tracking company
- accuweather.com3 tracking companies
- nike.com1 tracking company
- sophos.com3 tracking companies
- dailymail.com0 tracking companies
- amazon.es1 tracking company
- mckinsey.com0 tracking companies
- bestbuy.com0 tracking companies
- lenovo.com1 tracking company
- usda.gov4 tracking companies
- fidelity.com15 tracking companies
- moneycontrol.com3 tracking companies
- magnific.com2 tracking companies
- skysports.com2 tracking companies
- amd.com1 tracking company
Related cookies
Other cookies from Akamai.
How to stop it
Declining non-essential cookies in a site's consent banner should stop ak_bmsc 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.