What is the bm_sz cookie?
Set by Akamai's Bot Manager to help distinguish legitimate visitors from automated bots, as part of the risk signals it collects during a browsing session.
Our October 2026 scan found it on 98 sites (4% of the 2,450 we scanned), set before any consent.
- Purpose
- Necessary
- Belongs to
- Akamai
- Set as
- First-party (under the site's own domain)
- Typical lifetime
- Under a day
Sites that set bm_sz before consent
The highest-ranked 30 of 98 sites.
- intuit.com1 tracking company
- afternic.com0 tracking companies
- godaddy.com0 tracking companies
- mobile.de0 tracking companies
- ibm.com2 tracking companies
- salesforce.com1 tracking company
- hp.com2 tracking companies
- autodesk.com6 tracking companies
- dell.com12 tracking companies
- washingtonpost.com12 tracking companies
Show 20 more sites
- mcafee.com0 tracking companies
- playstation.com3 tracking companies
- nintendo.com0 tracking companies
- linode.com1 tracking company
- redhat.com1 tracking company
- mailchimp.com4 tracking companies
- mckinsey.com0 tracking companies
- bestbuy.com0 tracking companies
- lenovo.com1 tracking company
- usps.com24 tracking companies
- kleinanzeigen.de3 tracking companies
- mayoclinic.org3 tracking companies
- fidelity.com15 tracking companies
- moneycontrol.com3 tracking companies
- terra.com.br23 tracking companies
- amd.com1 tracking company
- makemytrip.com1 tracking company
- irs.gov3 tracking companies
- deezer.com4 tracking companies
- oddspark.com7 tracking companies
Related cookies
Other cookies from Akamai.
How to stop it
Declining non-essential cookies in a site's consent banner should stop optional cookies, though a necessary cookie like this one may still be set. 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 written by CookieTosser, for a cookie the Open Cookie Database doesn't cover.
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.