What is the pid cookie?
Unique ID associated with an end-user (according to a domain and browser).
Our October 2026 scan found it on 29 sites (1% of the 2,450 we scanned), set before any consent.
- Purpose
- Advertising
- Belongs to
- Smartadserver
- Set as
- First-party on 7% of sites, third-party on 93%
- Typical lifetime
- 3 months (vendor says: 13 months) — shorter than the vendor documents
Sites that set pid before consent
The highest-ranked 29 of 29 sites.
- amazon.com33 tracking companies
- amazon.co.za32 tracking companies
- ivi.ru10 tracking companies
- uol.com.br17 tracking companies
- techcrunch.com38 tracking companies
- amazon.com.mx34 tracking companies
- gismeteo.ru14 tracking companies
- 24h.com.vn20 tracking companies
- indianrail.gov.in10 tracking companies
- chordtela.com34 tracking companies
Show 19 more sites
- mirtesen.ru4 tracking companies
- made-in-china.com3 tracking companies
- politico.com31 tracking companies
- idnes.cz42 tracking companies
- ctvnews.ca38 tracking companies
- amazon.ae32 tracking companies
- cbssports.com5 tracking companies
- dictionary.com35 tracking companies
- ynet.co.il23 tracking companies
- askona.ru8 tracking companies
- iqm.com14 tracking companies
- insales.ru9 tracking companies
- detik.com13 tracking companies
- rediff.com42 tracking companies
- kakaku.com22 tracking companies
- amazon.sa32 tracking companies
- iz.ru8 tracking companies
- eleconomista.es24 tracking companies
- theweathernetwork.com21 tracking companies
Related cookies
Other cookies from Smartadserver.
- csync19 sites
- TestIfCookieP18 sites
How to stop it
Declining non-essential cookies in a site's consent banner should stop pid 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.