Whose Hands Are in the Finnish Cookie Jar?

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.