What is the pa_vid cookie?
The visitor-identifier cookie for AT Internet's Piano Analytics, used to recognize a returning visitor across page views.
Our October 2026 scan found it on 3 sites (0% of the 2,450 we scanned), set before any consent.
- Purpose
- Analytics
- Belongs to
- AT Internet (Piano)
- Set as
- First-party (under the site's own domain)
- Typical lifetime
- 13 months
Sites that set pa_vid before consent
The highest-ranked 3 of 3 sites.
- bbc.com4 tracking companies
- france24.com0 tracking companies
- rfi.fr0 tracking companies
Related cookies
Other cookies from AT Internet (Piano).
- pa_privacy15 sites
- atuserid4 sites
How to stop it
Declining non-essential cookies in a site's consent banner should stop pa_vid 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 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.