A cookie named lidc turns up in a scan. Nobody recognizes it. Someone Googles it. Someone else checks Cookiepedia. Marketing gets a Slack message. Three people give three different answers, and none of them can say who approved the cookie in the first place.

Today, ObservePoint ends that guessing game.

ObservePoint, the automated website scanner trusted by the world’s largest enterprises to govern what runs on their digital properties, today launched the Cookie and Tag Database: a searchable record of what every cookie and tag on a website actually does, built directly into the platform teams already use to find them. For the first time, privacy, compliance, and analytics teams get one answer instead of five guesses, and it’s an answer curated by a human expert.

Ten Years. Billions of Scans. A Person Behind Every Entry.

The Cookie and Tag Database is built from more than 10 years of ObservePoint scan data collected across the world’s highest traffic websites. It is not assembled from vendor documentation, and it is not generated by an AI agent at scan time. Every entry tells a team the consent category most companies assign a cookie or tag, the risk level it introduces, an accurate description of what it does, the vendor who created it, and authoritative references, all curated by an expert on ObservePoint’s team before it reaches a customer.

“We’ve been scanning real cookies and tags on real enterprise websites for more than 10 years now,” said Dave Smith, Chief Technology Officer at ObservePoint. “That’s not a dataset you build by reading vendor docs or asking an AI. It’s a dataset you build by doing the work, at scale, for a decade. When we say a cookie is a marketing cookie, it’s because we’ve watched it behave like one across thousands of real sites.”

When a Regulator Asks, the Answer Is Already Done

When a regulator or an auditor asks why a cookie is on your site and what it does, you need an answer you can stand behind, not one you’re pulling together for the first time under a deadline. Every definition in the Cookie and Tag Database was reviewed by a person before it reached you, with the vendor, the consent category, the risk level, and authoritative references documented right alongside it. The answer is ready before the question is asked.

“Our customers need to be able to stand behind every answer they give a regulator, and back it up with real documentation,” said Dave Smith.

The Part No Database Has Ever Captured

Beyond the definition itself, teams can add their own record to every cookie and tag: who approved it, who owns it internally, and why it’s still on the site. Legal Approver, Technical Maintainer, Product Owner, and Review Date all become structured, filterable, exportable fields inside ObservePoint. That accountability now lives in the platform instead of a spreadsheet that walks out the door when someone changes jobs. Customers can add their own custom fields to every definition in the database, so it works with your company’s policies and processes.

ObservePoint validated the Cookie and Tag Database with a private group of enterprise customers this summer, refining the product against real production scans before making it available to every customer today.

Availability

The Cookie and Tag Database is available today. ObservePoint customers get verified definitions for every cookie and tag found in their own scans, with full detail screens and custom context fields. Free accounts and free scans include a limited set of definitions. And the 100 most common cookies are now published publicly, free to anyone, at https://www.observepoint.com/cookies/.

About ObservePoint

ObservePoint is the automated website scanner for privacy, accessibility, and tag accuracy, helping the world’s most trusted brands govern their digital properties. observepoint.com

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