Whose Hands Are in the Finnish Cookie Jar?

TL;DR

This paper investigates the use of third-party cookies on Finnish websites, revealing country-specific patterns and partnerships with advertising companies, with implications for EU privacy regulation.

Contribution

It provides the first detailed analysis of country-specific cookie usage in Finland, highlighting unique ownership and partnership patterns compared to the global web.

Findings

Finnish websites are mainly owned by media companies.

Distinct partnerships exist between Finnish media and ad companies.

Results have implications for EU privacy regulation.

Abstract

Web cookies are ubiquitously used to track and profile the behavior of users. Although there is a solid empirical foundation for understanding the use of cookies in the global world wide web, thus far, limited attention has been devoted for country-specific and company-level analysis of cookies. To patch this limitation in the literature, this paper investigates persistent third-party cookies used in the Finnish web. The exploratory results reveal some similarities and interesting differences between the Finnish and the global web---in particular, popular Finnish web sites are mostly owned by media companies, which have established their distinct partnerships with online advertisement companies. The results reported can be also reflected against current and future privacy regulation in the European Union.