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We may be a little more obsessed with cookies than the average web surfer: after all, it’s in our name. But for something that plays such a pivotal role in how people use the internet on a daily basis, there’s a huge knowledge gap surrounding what cookies are and what they do.
So, what do people know and not know about cookies? We surveyed 1,000 U.S. adults to find out how much they know about how cookies work, how they manage cookies, and more.
Anyone who uses the internet on a regular basis has encountered cookies, whether through pop-ups asking for cookie permissions, or by clearing out their browser. But for how often we’re confronted with cookies, you’d think people would know what they are.
Less than half of people (46%) say they feel very or mostly confident that they understand what cookies are, with just one-fifth (21%) being very confident. While most people say they lack a strong knowledge of cookies, more than one in three (36%) claim they are at least somewhat confident they understand what cookies are and how they work.
Notably, when comparing responses across generations, 60% of millennials said they are mostly or very confident that they know what cookies are, versus just 45% each of Gen Z and Gen X.
You can manage cookies when you first access a website, but users also have the ability to change cookies settings after the fact from within their browser. This includes the ability to disable cookies or to clear them entirely. While many people don’t fully understand how cookies work, a little more than three-quarters of people said they do know how to clear and disable them.
Before getting more specific about what people think cookies do, it’s important to know what they actually do.
Cookies are pieces of information that are produced and stored by a web server when someone is browsing the internet. This can include data that users enter into a website such as passwords and usernames, or behaviors that the site collects, like the ads a user clicks on or items they view on e-commerce sites.
Some cookies help websites verify the authenticity of a user and prevent fraud, while others help the site function properly by doing things like remembering the user’s preferred language. Some cookies will even customize a user’s experience on a site, including the types of content and advertisements they see.
When you visit a site and allow it to use cookies, here’s what happens:
Cookies can store important personal information. And as with anything private, it is important for users to know how their cookies might be used by the companies who collect them.
So what exactly do people think cookies are used for? We presented a list of both real and fake ways that sites use cookies to see what people actually know.
The good news: About half of people correctly said that cookies are used to collect analytic data on site usage, personalize online ads, and store personal data.
On the other hand, less than one-third knew that cookies are also used to authenticate users and accounts. More than one-fifth of respondents (22%) said they think sites use cookies to sign users up for email lists involuntarily, and 13% said they have no idea at all what cookies do.
Respondents' overall responses here reveal some interesting insights into how well people understand cookies (or don’t). Just 11% of respondents were able to correctly identify all of the ways cookies are actually used, while 19% didn’t select a single correct one. Additionally, more than half of respondents, 53%, selected at least one of our fake answers.
For many people, the only time they think about internet cookies is when a pop-up opens on a site asking if they want to accept or reject cookies. But how many people are actually taking the time to investigate how cookies are used? And how many blindly accept or reject cookies without digging any deeper?
Nearly 40% of people blindly click “Accept” anytime they are prompted regarding cookies, while around one-fifth of people (18%) do the opposite and uniformly reject cookies. That leaves 44% of the population that actually takes the time to investigate or customize how their cookies are used.
Baby boomers are the most cautious when it comes to accepting or rejecting cookies, as just a little under one-third of them (32%) automatically accept cookies. That’s the lowest of any generation. They are also the most likely to automatically reject cookies — 31% of boomers do. That rejection rate is more than double that of any other age group.
On the other hand, Gen Z is most likely to blindly accept cookies, as nearly half of people in that age group (47%) routinely accept all cookies when surfing the web.
Since users have the option to reject cookies, what do people think happens if they choose to do so?
Despite how important they appear to be, cookies are mostly optional, and simply serve to try and improve and personalize the user experience on a given website. In most cases rejecting cookies mostly impacts future visits to a site, like having to re-input data, settings, or preferences on subsequent visits.
Around 40% of people correctly identified that rejecting cookies means they may not get the best user experience on a website. Around one-quarter of people said they think rejecting cookies means that sites cannot store and sell your information, and your personal data will not be saved.
In some rare cases, you may not be able to access the website in question without accepting at least some cookies.
To show just how little people understand how rejecting cookies works, only 2% of people were able to correctly identify every single real consequence of rejecting cookies.
Professor and Associate Chair, Applied Computing
Michigan Technological University
While certain third-party internet cookies may indeed improve your browsing experience by providing personalized content or remembering your preferences, it's essential not to blindly accept them for several reasons:
To ensure a more privacy-conscious and secure browsing experience, it's a good practice to review and understand the cookie policies of websites you visit. Many browsers offer settings that allow you to manage and control cookies, including options to block or delete them selectively. This way, you can strike a balance between a better browsing experience and safeguarding your privacy and security online.
Evaluating whether a website is storing necessary or unnecessary details about your personal identity may require a combination of experience, knowledge, vigilance, and informed decision-making. Here are some ways to assess the situation:
Regularly clearing your web browser's cache and internet cookies is important due to the privacy, safety, and regulatory reasons provided before. However, there are a couple of things to highlight.
First, while clearing your cookies and cache can enhance privacy and security, it may also log you out of websites and reset some preferences. Therefore, it's essential to weigh the benefits against the inconvenience, and to consider using browser settings that allow you to manage cookies and your cache more selectively. In this way, you can preserve data from trusted sites while clearing data from untrusted or unnecessary sources.
Second, regular internet users should prioritize addressing more pressing safety concerns. These include protecting against email phishing, improving password security, adopting multi-factor authentication, keeping computers up-to-date with patches, and installing antivirus software. Clearing caches and cookies may or may not be considered as one of the highest-priority actions for online safety and privacy.
Answers have been edited for clarity and brevity.
Assistant Professor, Department of Computer Science
Stevens Institute of Technology
My core recommendation is to browse the internet with JavaScript turned off, which prevents most data collection and advertising. Doing so breaks a lot of websites, though, so it's really only an option for experts.
After that, I recommend an ad blocker that doesn't take money from advertisers — namely, uBlock Origin.
There is no real way to evaluate what a website stores or knows about you. Assume anything you send over the internet is stored permanently and is shared [with third parties].
Clearing your browser's cache and cookies will have little effect, as it's very easy to "fingerprint" a browser and determine who it is anew.
VPNs just add a new entity who gets to see all of your browsing. VPNs claim to offer security and privacy with no potential for verification from users.
Answers have been edited for clarity and brevity.
To collect the data for this survey, our team at All About Cookies surveyed 1,000 U.S. adults in September 2023 via Pollfish. All respondents were U.S. citizens over the age of 18, and remained anonymous.
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