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Advertising & Marketing · Recorded milestone

Browser cookies

Recorded year1994

Lou Montulli at Netscape invents cookies so websites remember visitors, later used by ad networks to follow people across sites.

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Built on

World Wide WebRecorded · 1991requires
Graphical web browserRecorded · 1993enables

Led to

Online retailRecorded · 1995enables
Ad server networkRecorded · 1996enables
Social networksRecorded · 2004enables
Social network adsRecorded · 2007enables
Real-time ad auctionsRecorded · 2009enables
GDPR privacy lawRecorded · 2018enables

Sources & evidence

Additional source

Dataset updated 2026-10-18. This individual record has not been separately re-reviewed.