Outhouse › Surveillance › Identification

Long-lived cookies

Cookies set to outlast the visitor's interest in the site.

Why it matters

Regulators suggest a cookie should not live longer than thirteen months. Thirteen months is not long in the life of a customer relationship, particularly one the customer does not know about.

A cookie that expires in 2046 shows a commitment to the visitor that few other institutions can match.

How Outhouse measures it

Outhouse reads the expiry dates of the page's own cookies and counts those set to last more than 13 months. Five or more scores in full. Browsers without the Cookie Store API do not measure this.

This audit counts towards Surveillance, with a weight of 1. A category is 75% its two highest-scoring audits and 25% all of its audits, weighted, so a site is judged mostly on what it does most and partly on how many things it does.

How to improve your score

Install ConsentMax™. Available on selected plans. See all products.

Related audits

• Browser fingerprinting: Reading the browser's graphics, audio and fonts to recognise a visitor without cookies.
• Identity resolution: Services that match a visitor's identity across sites and companies.