What is the s_ivc cookie?
Stores an active visit flag for the Adobe Analytics getVisitNum plug-in to accurately calculate visitor frequency.
Table of Contents
About the s_ivc cookie
| Vendor | Adobe |
|---|---|
| Category Category The functional category of the technology, such as Web Analytics or Social Media. Learn more | Web Analytics |
| Consent Category Consent Category The consent category this cookie most commonly falls under across sites we scan, normalized into four standard categories. Learn more | Strictly Necessary |
| 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 10.9% of scanned pages |
| Expiration Type | Timestamp |
| Party Type Party Type Whether the cookie is first-party or third-party. Learn more | 1st-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 | Medium |
| Vendor Privacy Policy | https://www.adobe.com/privacy/policy.html |
| Vendor Website | https://www.adobe.com |
What is the purpose of the s_ivc cookie?
The s_ivc cookie is a first-party tracking cookie set by the getVisitNum plug-in within Adobe Analytics (formerly Omniture, acquired by Adobe in 2009). Its primary purpose is to help the plug-in accurately track and increment the visitor's overall visit count by marking the presence of an active session. It stores a simple boolean value (typically "true") and is configured to expire after 30 minutes of user inactivity.
Whenever a user returns to the site after at least 30 minutes of inactivity, the absence of this cookie signals to the Adobe Analytics script that a new visit has begun. This allows the associated s_vnc cookie to correctly increment the total visit counter. This mechanism ensures that returning visitors are counted properly in web analytics reports over extended periods (such as a month or a year) without inflating visit counts during continuous browsing sessions.
What are the Privacy Risks of the s_ivc cookie?
Risk Level: Medium
The s_ivc cookie itself only stores a boolean value to track session activity and does not contain Personally Identifiable Information (PII). However, it is an integral part of the Adobe Analytics tracking ecosystem, working in tandem with other cookies to measure visitor frequency and long-term user behavior. Because it facilitates persistent, pseudonymous tracking and behavioral profiling across a website, it represents a moderate privacy risk and typically requires user consent under standard ePrivacy and GDPR regulations.
How to Remove the s_ivc cookie from a Website
To remove the s_ivc cookie, a website administrator must adjust their Adobe Analytics implementation. Specifically, they need to remove or disable the getVisitNum plug-in from their Adobe Experience Platform Web SDK or AppMeasurement.js configuration. If the plug-in is deployed via a tag management system (such as Adobe Launch), the administrator should navigate to the tag property, locate the "Common Web SDK Plugins" or "Common Analytics Plugins" extension, and remove the data element or action configuration for getVisitNum. Once the plug-in is removed and the tag container is republished, the cookie will no longer be dropped. The built-in "Visit Number" dimension in Analysis Workspace will remain available for default reporting.