InsightExpress: Consumers Overstate Cookie Deletions

The majority of consumers--56 percent--said in a recent InsightExpress survey that they delete cookies from their computer monthly, but it's possible that far fewer actually succeed in doing so, said the research company.

For the report, InsightExpress asked 800 online consumers participating in a study if they would be willing to immediately delete cookies on their computers. Half of the respondents said yes, but, of that group, only 35 percent successfully purged their computers of cookies. InsightExpress's conclusion, based on the failure of the rest of the group to expunge their cookies, is that "the deletion of cookies [is] greatly exaggerated." InsightExpress will release the entire report Tuesday at Ad:Tech in San Francisco.

In March, a report by JupiterResearch stating that 39 percent of consumers delete cookies at least monthly roiled the online ad industry. The InsightExpress research is the latest challenge to the Jupiter report, but the conclusions don't appear to be definitive. For one thing, says Jupiter Research analyst Eric Peterson, some consumers who report deleting cookies don't manually purge cookies, but instead let anti-spyware or anti-adware programs delete them.

Also, the report only measured how many consumers who were willing to delete cookies could do so manually; it's not known what proportion of the ones who weren't willing to delete their cookies would have been able to do so.

In any event, said Peterson, even the InsightExpress research seems to show at least some cookie purging. "The issue is that cookie deletion is happening," Peterson said. "How often it's happening becomes somewhat academic."

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