Nearly 40 percent of Internet users delete cookies

**jess1** · 18-03-05

Source: ClickZ.com 14th March 05 http://www.clickz.com/news/article.php/3489636

Nearly 40 percent of Internet users delete cookies from their primary computers on at least a monthly basis, according to a study by JupiterResearch. The finding has big implications for advertising and marketing firms that depend on cookies for tracking and targeting.

Based on a survey of 2,337 U.S. respondents, the study finds that 17 percent of Internet users delete cookies on a weekly basis. Approximately 12 percent do so on a monthly basis, and 10 percent make it a daily habit.

"The key finding is that a lot of companies have placed a lot of reliance on cookies for audience measurement and the cookie is at risk as a mechanism for tracking people over time," said Eric Petersen, the lead analyst on the report.

The trend challenges the notion that cookie-based methods produce accurate measurements for marketers. Measurements affected by the deletion of cookies include the number of returning visitors, unique visitors, multi-session campaign conversions, and lifetime value. Techniques like behavioral targeting and personalization are also highly dependant on cookies.

"Advertisers using lifetime value metrics need to reexamine how accurate that data is," Petersen said. "The further away you get from the date the cookie was set, the less likely that the information is completely accurate."

The primary reason consumers remove cookies is that they believe cookies threaten their privacy and security online. Consumers also lack an understanding of the time saving benefits cookies provide, Petersen said.

"For some reason, consumers have identified cookies incorrectly as spyware," he added. "Consumers don't understand what cookies do."

The report found 28 percent of Internet users are selectively rejecting third party cookies, such as those placed by online ad networks. One company researchers interviewed said the number of visitors blocking third-party cookies has increased from less than three percent in January 2003 to 14 percent of visitors in January 2005. Peterson suggested site owners should turn instead to first-party cookies as a standard.

The report suggests that site owners also consider a registration/log-in model, which would allow publishers to re-set deleted cookies. For high-traffic sites where that would be impractical, Peterson suggests they consider using Macromedia Flash's local shared objects, which are less likely to be spotted and removed by anti-spyware programs.

Companies with high-consideration products should pay particularly close attention to the conclusions of the report, said Bryan Eisenberg, co-founder of Future Now.

"From a Web analytics point of view, latency trafficking will be more difficult to do," Eisenberg said. "For sites with products that have long sales cycles, it will be even more difficult to do, because you can't track that traffic over time."

**5starAffiliatePrograms** · 19-03-05

Yes I have read several articles about that and have been concerned about cookie tracking for a long time.

We need to find a back up way to track. I want our 15,000+ affiliates to get every penny they earn even IF more people start deleting cookies.

**Spreader** · 19-03-05

Yep,

this is worrying - although IMHO I can't believe 40% of internet users even know how to delete their cookies...

However, if this is the case, then does it mean that merchants who are with POR and offer cutomer based tracking are offering a more attractive proposition

Cheers,

Zak.

**christh** · 20-03-05

It is odd though. If I deleted ALL my cookies on a weekly or even monthly basis, you can bet I'd get pretty hacked off having to re-enter my login details for all the messageboards, online newspaper sites, and everything else that stores my registration information in a cookie...

More education is needed, I think I'll write up a page about the pros and 'cons' of cookies on my new site.

**John Jupp** · 20-03-05

If every merchant supplied a purpose built landing page with embedded affiliate links for each affiliate then it doesn't matter if cookies are deleted as the landing page is the probable bookmarked page.

Add recurring sales and a 999 day cookie and that would be an affiliates dream come true.

**Energyhelpline** · 25-09-06

I know loads of people who delete their cookies / internet files almost daily. Their reasoning is that usually that they don't want their boss finding out what websites they have surfed on

but also because they believe that other websites they log onto may 'see' where they have been and somehow record that information.

I even had one conspirator theorist say that he recons cookies are responsible for up to 95% of spam

**Ryan Gilbert** · 25-09-06

Cookie-less tracking technology is already available in different forms on various networks. As far as I know, some other networks have merchant side tracking (customer based tracking) as a back up for the traditional cookie tracking. Webgains has a completely unique and separate cookie-less tracking technology that does not rely on the merchants at all. I.e. no extra set up is required from a merchant point of view.

Our CTO Peter talks more about it here

Our tracking still uses cookies primarily but when no cookie is found, our cookieless will then come into effect. We're still finding around 8-10% non cookie transactions are being picked up.

**shoecake** · 26-09-06

Could someone summarise what other forms of tracking there are and how they work. As an affiliate, I have heard lots of talk about 'alternative' tracking methods but never found anytrhing that explains what there is clearly.

I have long worried about the trend for so called spyware applications deleting tracking cookies (in my opinion it's just so the program can tell the user every few minutes what a good job it is doing).
Most of my affiliate income is via white label sites, so It has not been an issue for me before.

**uklejon** · 26-09-06

I don't believe those stats. I'd like to see the demographics of the survey. They probably survey'd a load of IT managers

Joe Public in general are not net savvy enough to do that. Most of my customers don't know what a cookie is let alone deleting it.

I even get phone calls off people asking me to install software/change ink cartridges/plug in scanners for them as they're not confident of doing it.

Jon

**shoecake** · 26-09-06

users don't have to be tech savvy anymore, all those anti-spam/spyware programs on sale do it for them.

Take up is good on these as they are sold on fear.

**max99** · 26-09-06

not very good news for affiliates really. I think that we loose quite abit from people deleting cookies.

**renegade** · 26-09-06

Originally Posted by jess1

Nearly 40 percent of Internet users delete cookies from their primary computers on at least a monthly basis...

Probably the same 40% that made TD, Istockphoto and A4u hit the top 100 UK websites. It's duff information for sure.

Hats off to Webgains and POR for having alternative tracking up and running, I'd obviously like to see all networks moving towards cookie-less tracking.