What is the audit_p cookie?
The audit_p cookie is set by Magnite (formerly Rubicon Project) to record and store the user's cookie-consent decision for its advertising platform.
Table of Contents
About audit_p
| Vendor | Magnite |
|---|---|
| Cookie Domain | rubiconproject.com |
| Category Category The functional category of the technology, such as Web Analytics or Social Media. Learn more | Site Infrastructure & Security |
| Consent Category Consent Category The consent category this cookie most commonly falls under across sites we scan, normalized into four standard categories. Learn more | Targeting & Advertising |
| Prevalence | Very Common |
| Popularity Popularity Popularity is calculated from our dataset of 4.5B+ cookies analyzed across hundreds of millions of web pages. Learn more | Found on 22% of scanned pages |
| Expiration Type | Timestamp |
| Expiration Duration | 30 days |
| Party Type Party Type Whether the cookie is first-party or third-party. Learn more | 3rd-Party |
| Risk Level Risk Level Rates how sensitive the data stored by this cookie is (High, Medium, or Low) based on data classification and distribution. Learn more | Low |
| Vendor Privacy Policy | https://www.magnite.com/legal/platform-cookie-policy/ |
| Vendor Website | https://www.magnite.com |
What is the purpose of audit_p?
The audit_p cookie is a third-party cookie set on the rubiconproject.com domain by Magnite, the sell-side advertising platform formed from the merger of Rubicon Project and Telaria in 2020 (rebranded as Magnite that same year). Independent cookie databases and numerous published cookie policies consistently describe the audit/audit_p cookie as being used to record cookie-consent data - i.e., to store the state of the user's consent (or opt-out) regarding Magnite's tracking technologies so that the platform can honor that choice on subsequent requests.
Unlike Magnite's digital-identifier cookies used for cross-site recognition and ad targeting (such as khaos and ruid, which Magnite explicitly lists in its User Choice Portal), audit_p is not enumerated as one of those tracking identifiers. Its role is consent/compliance bookkeeping for the advertising platform rather than carrying a persistent advertising ID. The encoded value stores the consent-related information needed for the platform to remember the user's preference.
What are the Privacy Risks of audit_p?
Risk Level: Low
Available documentation indicates that audit_p is used to record the user's cookie-consent state for Magnite's advertising platform rather than to carry a persistent cross-site advertising identifier. Consent/compliance-record cookies of this kind store the user's preference and do not, on their own, contain directly personally identifiable information (PII) and are not Magnite's enumerated cross-site tracking identifiers (which are separate cookies such as khaos and ruid).
Because the cookie's function is consent bookkeeping rather than profiling, its inherent privacy risk is low. It is nonetheless set by a third-party advertising vendor in the context of programmatic ad serving, so privacy officers should still evaluate it alongside the broader Magnite integration and ensure consent for the vendor's tracking technologies is handled correctly; the cookie itself, however, primarily supports honoring that consent choice.
How to Remove audit_p from a Website
To stop the audit_p cookie from being set, website administrators must remove or disable the Magnite (formerly Rubicon Project) tags, pixels, or supply-side integration from their site infrastructure. This is typically done by pausing or deleting the Magnite tag within a Tag Management System (such as Google Tag Manager, Tealium, or Adobe Launch). If Magnite is integrated as a demand partner within a header-bidding wrapper or SSP setup (e.g., Prebid.js), the administrator must adjust the wrapper's configuration to exclude Magnite as a bidder. Because this cookie is set directly by the Magnite advertising service, it cannot be removed without removing or disabling that vendor's integration from the site.