Question Variations
In Fire Fox, it appears that the invoca_session cookie has Max-Age of 100 years. Does it mean that the cookie lasts for 100 years?Applies To
invoca_session cookie, Data attribution WindowAnswer
That is a default arbitrary value set by the Invoca JS library file and has little bearing on reality. In most cases, browsers take things into their own hands to delete 1st party cookies after 1-30 days of inactivity.
Max-age of the cookie is set to 100 years out, to make it a long-term cookie (i.e. to preserve the Invoca ID) but how long the data attribute will be stored is defined under "ttl".
Every time the Invoca tag writes to the cookie, It bumps out the "ttl" to be now + attribution window lifetime(days) set in tag.
The Attribution Window refers to the window of time Invoca will capture and update attribution values for each unique site visitor. If that visitor doesn't return to your site within the selected window of time, they will get new attribution values on their next visit. Again, the attribution window settings will always take precedence over any expiration date set for the cookie.
In addition, browsers also have their own logic as to how long they will allow a first-party cookie to remain on a browser. As an example, regardless of our cookie expiration/attribution window or expiration date, Safari auto-removes cookies after 1 day or 7 days (depending on a few factors).
So while the cookie could remain on the browser, attribution data tied to the visitor will be cleared. You can think of it like this - the Invoca cookie could live for 100 years, but the attribution data (which has the visitor data) is cleared out according to your attribution window settings or browser settings, or can even be removed manually by the user.
