What does popsci.com track?
Before any consent, popsci.com loaded 7 tracking companies and set 3 advertising or analytics cookies.
That's more tracking companies than 86% of the 2,450 sites we scanned.
Scanned October 2, 2026 from Germany, loading www.popsci.com once and clicking nothing. How we scan
- Tracking companies
- 7
- Tracking cookies
- 3
- Third-party hosts
- 31
- Cookies in total
- 13
Consent banner
The page loaded OneTrust, a consent management platform. Everything below was recorded before anyone answered it. 7 tracking companies still loaded while it was unanswered.
Companies contacted before consent
4 of the 13 companies it contacted before consent were analytics companies.
- DoubleVerify5 requestsAdvertising
pub.doubleverify.com, vtrk.dv.tech
- Google Ads4 requestsAdvertising
securepubads.g.doubleclick.net, pagead2.googlesyndication.com
- Amazon Advertising3 requestsAdvertising
config.aps.amazon-adsystem.com, client.aps.amazon-adsystem.com, c.amazon-adsystem.com
- Parse.ly4 requestsAnalytics
experiments.parsely.com, cdn.parsely.com, api.parsely.com, p1.parsely.com
- Google Analytics4 requestsAnalytics
www.googletagmanager.com, www.google-analytics.com
- Sailthru2 requestsAnalytics
ak.sail-horizon.com, api.sail-personalize.com
- Chartbeat2 requestsAnalytics
static.chartbeat.com, ping.chartbeat.net
Other third parties (content delivery, consent, functional, unclassified)
- p-n.io3 requestsUnclassified
k.p-n.io, cdn.p-n.io
- lightboxcdn.com2 requestsUnclassified
s3.lightboxcdn.com
- OneTrust7 requestsConsent banner
cdn.cookielaw.org, geolocation.onetrust.com
- Google7 requestsFunctional
fonts.gstatic.com, fonts.googleapis.com
- WordPress.com2 requestsFunctional
stats.wp.com, pixel.wp.com
- Ziff Davis15 requestsContent delivery
cdn.ziffstatic.com, cdn.static.zdbb.net, zdbb.net, gurgle.zdbb.net
Cookies set before consent
The longest-lived tracking cookie it set was opt_out, lasting about 13 months.
| Cookie | Purpose | Set by | Lasts |
|---|---|---|---|
| opt_out | Advertising | popsci.com | 13 months |
| sailthru_pageviews | Advertising | www.popsci.com | Under a day |
| sailthru_visitor | Advertising | www.popsci.com | 12 months |
| _pn_GPq6mjrl | Unclassified | www.popsci.com | 6 months |
| csp | Unclassified | zdbb.net (third party) | 30 days |
| fu | Unclassified | www.popsci.com | 30 days |
| h_zdbb | Unclassified | zdbb.net (third party) | 6 months |
| nabSegmentation | Unclassified | www.popsci.com | 4 months |
| zd_core_lialready | Unclassified | popsci.com | 15 days |
| __cf_bm | Functional | forms.popsci.com | Under a day |
| _parsely_session | Functional | popsci.com | Under a day |
| _parsely_visitor | Functional | popsci.com | 13 months |
| OptanonConsent | Functional | popsci.com | 12 months |
The page also wrote 3 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.