Note: The following is a guest post by Emer Kirrane, who is a Yahoo! Web Analytics Account Manager out of the Budapest office. Go connect with her @eXXX - she’s smart!

This week, I ran a survey on the subject of cookies, cookie deletion and privacy and the results were quite interesting. The survey was run online and had 100 respondents who can generally be assumed to be at least vaguely Internet-savvy. It was sent out to and passed around by Twitter followers who are, in the main, linked to analytics/SEO/SEM etc; to the IT department of a large bank; to the IT department of a small-town local authority; to the staff in the Yahoo! Web Analytic Hungarian office, most of whom are programmers. Respondents came from at least 6 countries that I know of – very possibly more. I had considered broadening the scope of the survey to include those who use the Internet but cannot be considered to be terribly clued up on issues like targeting, tracking, cookies etc, (which would have led to completely different survey questions), but on a quick verbal survey of a small group of those who would be considered to fall into this category, I felt that the results would lose focus. I.e. most did not know what cookies were, what the difference between 1st- and 3rd- party cookies were, and those that did had were not entirely sure what they were used for. Therefore, for my purposes, I assume that this category would generally leave cookie treatment to their default browser settings. I think this group should be treated in a separate survey, which I will leave for another day.

The survey comprised 5 questions, most of which were Yes / No with an optional “Why?” comment.

The Results

1) I block 3rd-party cookies.

• YES 36%
• NO 64%

Of those who answered “Yes” and commented, the main concern appeared to be around trust and privacy. There was a general consensus that 3rd-party cookies were unsolicited and set by “snoopers“. There was also some concern around the fact that something, however innocuous, was being set on the visitor’s hard drive.
Those who answered “No” were generally far more blasé in their language. 3rd-party cookies were nothing to worry about and could always be deleted if there was some concern about their origin.

2) I block 1st-party cookies.

• YES 6%
• NO 94%

The overwhelming consensus here was that 1st-party cookies did more good than harm. Convenience (in terms of recognition, logins etc) was cited as a major bonus. What is interesting here is that it appears that visitors don’t mind their browsing behavior tracked or monitored as long as they feel they have been given a choice in the matter. I.e. if I go to Site A, I have no problem with Site A knowing what I looked at, what I bought, and who I am, but I don’t want Company B to know the same information.

3) I manually delete cookies:

• Daily
• Weeky
• Monthly
• Never (never delete cookies manually - don’t know browser settings)
• Never (never delete cookies manually - auto-delete cookies based on my browser settings)
• Other

Unfortunately, due to some over-zealous multi-tasking, “Other” was set not up as a separate choice, but as a comment, which meant you also had to choose one of the time-frames. However, as luck would have it, the vast majority, according to the entries in the “Other” field, indicated that cookies were manually deleted fairly randomly and with no particular pattern (if deleted at all). Most cookie clearances seemed to take place after online financial transactions or if a site visited appeared particularly dubious.
Interestingly, despite the general acceptance that cookies are not insidious pieces of software out to steal your identity, there was quite a high instance of seeing them as having a potential for abuse. I.e. cookies are fine, I love them, I would let my favourite child marry one, but I still wouldn’t trust one set by a site I don’t trust.

4) I have customized my browser settings with regard to cookie blocking and deletion.

• YES 42%
• NO 58%

Due to the high instance of 3rd-party cookie deletion and non-blocking of 1st-party cookies, it can be inferred from these results that many of the respondents know that their browser settings reject 3rd-party cookies while accepting 1st-party cookie and have left these settings be.

5) I have concerns about cookies being misused to compromise my privacy.

• YES 38%
• NO 62%

Of those who answered “Yes”” to this question, the comments indicated an uneasiness with being tracked and targeted by advertising companies. There was also a sense of distrust around the potential for abuse – companies using cookies to personally identify visitors, spyware, information theft, malware etc. However, we can infer that some of those who do not entirely trust cookies and their usage also happily accept 1st-party cookies because of the convenience they offer.
Those who answered “No” were generally very emphatic about the fact that they did not suffer from “paranoia”. Understanding the limitations of cookies and the fact that other forms of “spying” were far more threatening were cited as reasons to discount any perceived menace from cookies.

It would appear that cookies can be seen to make life easier and that this convenience outweighs most of the worries those in this particular survey group suffer. Visitor choice is key – if someone chooses to visit a particular site, they choose to accept cookies from that site in order to make that site work better. However, this consent does not necessarily extend past that particular domain.

So, cookies are good as long as they’re not bad.

Cheers,

E