What is the V cookie?
This cookie is used by PulsePoint to identify visitors across websites, build behavioral profiles, and serve targeted programmatic advertisements.
Table of Contents
About the V cookie
| Vendor | PulsePoint |
|---|---|
| Cookie Domain | contextweb.com |
| Category Category The functional category of the technology, such as Web Analytics or Social Media. Learn more | Advertising & Paid Media |
| 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 11.3% of scanned pages |
| Expiration Type | Timestamp |
| Expiration Duration | 24 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 | High |
| Vendor Privacy Policy | https://www.pulsepoint.com/legal/platform-privacy-policy |
| Vendor Website | https://www.pulsepoint.com/ |
What is the purpose of the V cookie?
The V cookie is a third-party tracking identifier set by the PulsePoint programmatic advertising platform (formerly ContextWeb, acquired by Internet Brands - the owner of WebMD - in 2021, and operated as an independent company) on the contextweb.com domain. It functions as a persistent visitor ID (a VGUID) that tracks visitor interactions across multiple websites. It collects pseudonymous data to facilitate real-time bidding (RTB) on ad exchanges, track ad performance, and measure the effectiveness of marketing campaigns. PulsePoint uses this cookie primarily to synchronize user IDs with other demand-side platforms (DSPs) and data management platforms (DMPs), allowing advertisers - often in the healthcare and pharmaceutical sectors - to target specific audience segments with relevant display, video, or contextual ads.
What are the Privacy Risks of the V cookie?
Risk Level: High
The cookie is utilized for cross-site tracking, behavioral profiling, and targeted advertising within the programmatic ecosystem. Due to PulsePoint's specific focus on healthcare and pharmaceutical marketing, the data associated with this tracking identifier may be used to build audience segments based on inferred medical interests. Sharing browsing habits with a third-party ad exchange to inform health-related advertising presents a high privacy risk to users.
How to Remove the V cookie from a Website
To remove this cookie, the website administrator must remove the PulsePoint tracking tags (such as PulsePoint Retargeting or HCP365 pixels) or Sovrn ad tags from their tag management system or website source code. If PulsePoint is integrated indirectly through a programmatic ad exchange, supply-side platform (SSP), or header bidding wrapper (such as Prebid.js), the administrator must configure their ad server to remove PulsePoint from the list of approved bidders or disable the associated programmatic vendor integration. If PulsePoint is required for the desired advertising functionality, the cookie cannot be removed without removing the PulsePoint integration entirely.