About the Cookie Collector


The Cookie Collector is a browser plug-in that runs silently in the background, captures data about cookies being placed on your machine from the websites you visit, and transmits it to a database on our secure servers.

None of the information we store identifies in any way the individual or the device that it comes from. We are not interested in recording your browsing habits or anything else - although this is of course what many of these cookies do.

Our aim is to build up a cookie knowledge base that we can share with the world. We don't want to watch you, we want to watch the people who are watching you.


What we Capture


We are collecting some standard data about each cookie that is either downloaded to your machine, or uploaded back to a website you return to.

This includes the name, the website it came from, the originating domain (for third party cookies), whether it is persistent or a session cookie - and when it expires (if ever).

We also record browser session times, purely so we can get an idea of how much cookie activity is taking place in an average session.

The Cookie Data page contains full details of what is recorded in our database.

What we are Doing with this Data


We are initially looking at some very raw statistics, the number of cookies passed in each direction, the number of browser sessions, the top domains that the cookies are coming from.

We will shortly be providing a live feed of those stats on this site.  The next stage that we are working towards is to open up the database to provide more information about individual cookies, including what types of data they are capturing, and who is collecting it. We won't be able to do this all on our own however, so we will be inviting everybody to contribute what they know or have researched.

In this way we can build a truly valuable and open resource, along with new services that will not only shed light on the issues surrounding cookies, but also give consumers new tools and information to take control of their data sharing without breaking their web experience. And maybe together we can also help to influence the shape of legislation to ensure the 21st century web continues to work for everyone's benefit.

The Cookie Collector is only available for Firefox at this time.  However we will be releasing new versions for the other browsers in the coming months, as well as adding functionality to control your cookies, so please make sure you register for updates below.