How to disable TrustPid, the new “supercookie” that Movistar and Orange use to track their customers

Nobody likes cookies. They were born as a way personalize our experience on the Internet and have become a tool that collect data indiscriminately. That is why they are being persecuted more and more. The bad thing is that they occur worst alternativesWhich TrustPid, known colloquially as a supercookie. Developed by Vodafone in Spain, Telefónica (Movistar) and Orange have activated it for their customers. How does it affect you? Is it possible to disable TrustPid, supercookies?

As we learned a few days ago, TrustPid is token which acts like supercookies. Its job is to track users as they browse the internet. This is how they collect information that can be used with advertising purposes. And unlike traditional cookies, no one asked us for permission to activate them. Moreover, the raison d’être of TrustPid is to bypass tracker blockers, Apple’s restrictions on your devices to protect our privacy and besides, take care of future laws that will hinder or hinder third party cookies.

so if you Telefónica (Movistar or O2) or Orange client in Spain you will have TrustPid activated. It is also activated in France (Orange and SFR) and Germany (Vodafone and Deutsche Telekom). On all your devices connected to the networks of these providers. Basically, this under testing. But the goal in the short to medium term is to have it fully functional and track our browsing to show personalized ads. If it looks good to you, nothing happens. But if not, can we get rid of this supercookie?

Disable TrustPid supercookies

TrustPid is justified on its official website as a solution to provide free internet. Well, it refers to the pages you visit, since Internet access is still paid. The ad text states that “TrustPid is a technology solution that allows consumers to enjoy free content and the benefits of the open Internet while maintaining control over privacy.”

But in this article we are not going to enter into this discussion. We are going to focus on what we can do to disable TrustPid supercookies. That is, you can decide whether you want to be tracked or not. On the main page of this supercookie we find a section called Managing your consent. It says that in order to manage your consent, you need to use mobile internet connection. Come on, you’ll have to connect with smartphone via mobile data instead of using WiFi.

The process of disabling TrustPid, supercookies, is simple. We push the button check mein English Confirm me. A few seconds after the “Accessing…” message is displayed, a new message will appear with the cancellation details next to the button stop service or stop the service. Basically already there. According to the message we will see on the screen, “this option stops TrustPid for all advertisers or publishers.” But then he writes “this option is valid up to 90 days of inactivity“.

The question is: in 90 days, 3 months, TrustPid will be activated again? It also tells us that stopping the service is independent of the consent we have to give in the Consent Management Platform. A platform that I don’t currently have access to. Interestingly, this message appears in the English text, but not in its Spanish version.

That’s all for now. It is possible to disable the TrustPid supercookie. but we will have to see how we will be notified affected customers that we have activated the supercookie. We will also have to wait if, in addition to Orange and Telefónica (Movistar, O2), they join more providers from the Internet to TrustPid, which is already happening in Germany and France. And finally, can we customize behavior supercookies from some configuration menu, or will we just have the option to accept or decline this “service”?