What does bbc.com track?
Before any consent, bbc.com loaded 4 tracking companies and set 7 advertising or analytics cookies.
That's more tracking companies than 70% of the 2,450 sites we scanned.
Scanned October 2, 2026 from Germany, loading www.bbc.com once and clicking nothing. How we scan
- Tracking companies
- 4
- Tracking cookies
- 7
- Third-party hosts
- 15
- Cookies in total
- 18
Consent banner
The page loaded Sourcepoint, a consent management platform. Everything below was recorded before anyone answered it. 4 tracking companies still loaded while it was unanswered.
Companies contacted before consent
3 of the 7 companies it contacted before consent were analytics companies.
- Google Ads1 requestAdvertising
pagead2.googlesyndication.com
- Optimizely4 requestsAnalytics
cdn.optimizely.com, a4621041136.cdn.optimizely.com, logx.optimizely.com
- Dotmetrics4 requestsAnalytics
uk-script.dotmetrics.net, rm-script.dotmetrics.net
- Chartbeat2 requestsAnalytics
static.chartbeat.com, ping.chartbeat.net
Other third parties (content delivery, consent, functional, unclassified)
- bbci.co.uk105 requestsUnclassified
static.files.bbci.co.uk, ichef.bbci.co.uk, mybbc-analytics.files.bbci.co.uk, static.bbci.co.uk
- Sourcepoint12 requestsConsent banner
cdn.privacy-mgmt.com
- Piano1 requestFunctional
cdn.tinypass.com
Cookies set before consent
The longest-lived tracking cookie it set was _cb, from Chartbeat, lasting about 13 months.
| Cookie | Purpose | Set by | Lasts |
|---|---|---|---|
| optimizelyEndUserId | Advertising | bbc.com | 6 months |
| _cb | Analytics | bbc.com | 13 months |
| _cb_svref | Analytics | bbc.com | Under a day |
| _chartbeat2 | Analytics | bbc.com | 13 months |
| _oeu1790933817420r0.5795457894124468$… | Analytics | a4621041136.cdn.optimizely.com (third party) | 6 months |
| optimizelySession | Analytics | bbc.com | 6 months |
| pa_vid | Analytics | bbc.com | 13 months |
| _sp_su | Unclassified | bbc.com | 12 months |
| ckns_echo_device_id | Unclassified | bbc.com | 12 months |
| ckns_explicit | Unclassified | bbc.com | 12 months |
| ckns_mvt | Unclassified | bbc.com | 12 months |
| ckns_policy | Unclassified | bbc.com | 12 months |
| ckns_policy_exp | Unclassified | bbc.com | 12 months |
| ckns_privacy | Unclassified | bbc.com | 12 months |
| __cf_bm | Functional | tinypass.com (third party) | Under a day |
| _pcid | Functional | bbc.com | 13 months |
| _pctx | Functional | bbc.com | 13 months |
| _pprv | Functional | bbc.com | 13 months |
The page also wrote 18 keys to local storage, which works like a cookie but isn't sent with requests.
Understanding this page
- How to see which cookies and trackers a website loads
A hands-on walkthrough for checking what a site sets before you've clicked anything, using Chrome and Firefox's built-in tools, plus how CookieTosser automates the same check every month.
- What counts as valid cookie consent in the EU
The rules that actually govern cookie banners — the ePrivacy Directive, the GDPR consent standard, the Planet49 ruling, the strictly-necessary exemption, and what "reject" has to offer compared with "accept.
- Consent management platforms explained
What a CMP banner is actually doing behind the scenes, how the IAB's TCF standard and Google's Consent Mode v2 fit in, and why a banner being present is no guarantee that nothing loads before you answer it.