What is the OAU cookie?
We don't have a vendor description for this cookie yet, but our scan shows it's set by Opera Ads, and it typically lasts 12 months. It's listed as advertising.
Our October 2026 scan found it on 24 sites (1% of the 2,450 we scanned), set before any consent.
- Purpose
- Advertising
- Belongs to
- Opera Ads
- Set as
- Third-party (under another company's domain)
- Typical lifetime
- 12 months
Sites that set OAU before consent
The highest-ranked 24 of 24 sites.
- globo.com24 tracking companies
- terra.com.br23 tracking companies
- vnexpress.net14 tracking companies
- playhop.com6 tracking companies
- oricon.co.jp36 tracking companies
- haberler.com14 tracking companies
- syosetu.com24 tracking companies
- 24h.com.vn20 tracking companies
- kakuyomu.jp18 tracking companies
- chordtela.com34 tracking companies
Show 14 more sites
- animanch.com22 tracking companies
- politico.com31 tracking companies
- hatena.ne.jp19 tracking companies
- hindustantimes.com36 tracking companies
- idnes.cz42 tracking companies
- asahi.com41 tracking companies
- ctvnews.ca38 tracking companies
- nicovideo.jp24 tracking companies
- myanimelist.net20 tracking companies
- japantimes.co.jp32 tracking companies
- kakaku.com22 tracking companies
- infoseek.co.jp22 tracking companies
- nifty.com32 tracking companies
- eleconomista.es24 tracking companies
How to stop it
Declining non-essential cookies in a site's consent banner should stop OAU 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.
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.