What does smh.com.au track?
Before any consent, smh.com.au loaded 6 tracking companies and set 8 advertising or analytics cookies.
That's more tracking companies than 83% of the 2,450 sites we scanned.
Scanned October 2, 2026 from Germany, loading www.smh.com.au once and clicking nothing. How we scan
- Tracking companies
- 6
- Tracking cookies
- 8
- Third-party hosts
- 36
- Cookies in total
- 25
Consent banner
The page loaded Google Funding Choices, a consent management platform. Everything below was recorded before anyone answered it. 6 tracking companies still loaded while it was unanswered.
Companies contacted before consent
6 of the 16 companies it contacted before consent were unclassified.
- Google Ads11 requestsAdvertising
securepubads.g.doubleclick.net, ad.doubleclick.net, 6588526.fls.doubleclick.net, www.googleadservices.com
- Microsoft Advertising7 requestsAdvertising
bat.bing.com, bat.bing.net
- Magnite1 requestAdvertising
micro.rubiconproject.com
- Google Analytics6 requestsAnalytics
www.googletagmanager.com
- Cxense (Piano)4 requestsAnalytics
cdn.cxense.com, id.cxense.com, comcluster.cxense.com
- Qualtrics4 requestsAnalytics
siteintercept.qualtrics.com, znawqoh5e46wdazt0-nineresearch.siteintercept.qualtrics.com
Other third parties (content delivery, consent, functional, unclassified)
- ffx.io31 requestsUnclassified
static.ffx.io, l.ffx.io
- storifyme.com4 requestsUnclassified
c77.cdn.storifyme.com, cdn.storifyme.com
- adfixus.com2 requestsUnclassified
afx.adfixus.com
- 9pub.io1 requestUnclassified
adkit.9pub.io
- nine.com.au1 requestUnclassified
alib.nine.com.au
- storifyme.xyz1 requestUnclassified
storifyme.xyz
- Google32 requestsFunctional
fundingchoicesmessages.google.com, www.gstatic.com, news.google.com, play.google.com
- Piano17 requestsFunctional
buy-au.piano.io, cdn.tinypass.com, c2-au.piano.io
- Cloudflare21 requestsContent delivery
cdnjs.cloudflare.com
- jsDelivr1 requestContent delivery
cdn.jsdelivr.net
Cookies set before consent
The longest-lived tracking cookie it set was cX_G, from Piano, lasting about 13 months.
| Cookie | Purpose | Set by | Lasts |
|---|---|---|---|
| _gcl_au | Advertising | smh.com.au | 3 months |
| cX_G | Advertising | smh.com.au | 13 months |
| gckp | Advertising | cxense.com (third party) | 12 months |
| IDE | Advertising | doubleclick.net (third party) | 13 months |
| __pat | Analytics | smh.com.au | 30 days |
| __pvi | Analytics | smh.com.au | 1 day |
| cX_P | Analytics | smh.com.au | 13 months |
| FCCDCF | Analytics | smh.com.au | 13 months |
| adfixus_id_hs | Unclassified | adfixus.com (third party) | 12 months |
| afx_crid | Unclassified | smh.com.au | Under a day |
| afx_csid | Unclassified | smh.com.au | 12 months |
| afx_dcr | Unclassified | smh.com.au | Session |
| afx_orref | Unclassified | smh.com.au | Session |
| afx_pbd | Unclassified | smh.com.au | 12 months |
| afx_profile | Unclassified | smh.com.au | 12 months |
| afx_profile_hs | Unclassified | smh.com.au | 12 months |
| afx_ptpce | Unclassified | smh.com.au | 13 months |
| afx_scdr | Unclassified | smh.com.au | Under a day |
| afx_syndr | Unclassified | smh.com.au | Session |
| __cf_bm | Functional | tinypass.com (third party) | Under a day |
| __cf_bm | Functional | piano.io (third party) | Under a day |
| __tbc | Functional | smh.com.au | 13 months |
| _pcid | Functional | smh.com.au | 13 months |
| _pctx | Functional | smh.com.au | 13 months |
| xbc | Functional | smh.com.au | 13 months |
The page also wrote 15 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.