Oracle

Overview

Oracle's web tracking portfolio spans four distinct products that may appear on publisher and advertiser sites: BlueKai (data management platform and third-party data marketplace), Moat (ad viewability and attention measurement), AddThis (social sharing widgets), and Eloqua (B2B marketing automation). Oracle acquired these through a series of acquisitions: BlueKai (2014, $400M), Moat (2017), AddThis (2016), and Eloqua (2012, $871M). Oracle shut down BlueKai and AddThis in 2023 following regulatory scrutiny, but remnant pixels remain active on many sites. Moat and Eloqua remain active Oracle products. The Oracle web tracking suite represents one of the most expansive third-party data collection operations ever built, with BlueKai at its peak processing data on hundreds of millions of web users daily.

What This Script Does

BlueKai (Data Management Platform)

The BlueKai pixel loaded from cm.oracle.com or tags.bluekai.com set a persistent third-party cookie (bk_uid, bku) with a 2-year expiry to identify browsers across all BlueKai-partner sites. The script logged page URLs, product categories, search terms, and behavioral signals. This data was sold through Oracle's B2B data marketplace to advertisers seeking to target audience segments (e.g., "in-market for SUVs," "frequent business traveler"). In 2020, a misconfigured BlueKai server exposed billions of behavioral records publicly — a breach that resulted in a class action lawsuit. Oracle shut down BlueKai in May 2023.

Moat (Ad Viewability and Attention)

Moat scripts load from z.moatads.com and measure ad viewability (whether an ad was actually visible on screen), attention time, hover events, and scroll behavior for publisher and advertiser campaigns. Cookies set: moatpixel (session), moatab (persistent, 1 year). Moat collects page URL, scroll position, viewport dimensions, mouse hover coordinates over ad units, and in-view duration. Data is reported to advertisers and publishers for ad quality measurement. Moat does not serve ads directly but its measurement scripts are present on many publisher pages.

AddThis (Social Sharing Widgets)

AddThis buttons loaded from s7.addthis.com/js/300/addthis_widget.js and set the uid and dt cookies (persistent, 2-year expiry) on addthis.com. AddThis tracked which content users shared across the web, building a behavioral dataset that Oracle sold as audience segments. Oracle shut down AddThis in May 2023.

Eloqua (Marketing Automation)

Eloqua's tracking pixel fires from s1.eloqua.com or img.en25.com via a 1×1 transparent image request. It sets a persistent first-party cookie — typically ELOQUA (2-year expiry) — on the marketer's own domain via a server-side redirect, giving the cookie first-party status while linking the visitor to Eloqua's cross-site contact graph. Eloqua tracks page visits, form submissions, email opens, and link clicks to score leads and trigger marketing automation sequences. Cross-site tracking occurs when the same Eloqua instance is used by multiple brands under one enterprise customer.

Consent & Compliance

Category: Marketing / Analytics

Oracle's DMP and data marketplace operations represent one of the most aggressive third-party tracking regimes ever deployed. The FTC investigated Oracle's data broker practices. A major security incident in 2020 (BlueKai data leak) exposed the scale of behavioral data collection — billions of records including site visits, shopping activity, and location data.

Under GDPR, all Oracle tracking components require explicit consent for advertising and audience profiling purposes. Moat's viewability measurement may qualify as analytics (requiring consent), but not as strictly necessary. Eloqua's tracking is marketing automation requiring consent.

Oracle participates in IAB TCF 2.2 (Vendor ID 524 for Oracle Advertising). TCF purposes exercised: Purpose 1, Purpose 3, Purpose 4, Purpose 7, Purpose 9, Purpose 10.

Under CCPA, Oracle's data marketplace constitutes selling personal information. Oracle is registered under the EU-US Data Privacy Framework.

Should You Block This Without Consent?

Yes. Oracle's web tracking suite — spanning BlueKai's audience data marketplace, Moat's measurement tracking, and Eloqua's cross-site contact graph — is fundamentally marketing-oriented. Despite BlueKai and AddThis shutdowns in 2023, Eloqua and Moat pixels remain in active use. All Oracle advertising tracking scripts require explicit consent before loading.