Dear Fosfaglo,
There are inconclusive findings regarding this question. It seems that
it all depends on the methodology you apply and the way you get your
data.
According to the American Internet User Survey (AIUS), the percent of
users who choose automatic rejection of all cookies is between 3%-4%
(allow margin of error), according to several online studies, of them
only 2% of the African American users:
"Interestingly, the tracking technology referred to as "cookies"
(which places an electronic tag on an individual's Internet browser
and tracks Web site visits) is well known, and seemingly well accepted
by the vast majority of Internet users. Eighty-four percent of all
Internet users (and 89% of health seekers) are aware of cookies, but
only 4% of users set their browsers to reject all cookies
automatically."
© 2000, California HealthCare Foundation.4Ethics Survey of Consumer
Attitudes about Health Web Sites
<http://www.pkimedmail.com/pdf/surveyreport.pdf>
Percent of Internet users who reject all cookies: %3 in both years
Survey conducted by Cyber Dialogue, "] Privacy vs. Personalization"
<http://www.cyberdialogue.com/library/pdfs/wp-cd-2000-privacy.pdf>.
However, Pew Internet Research claims that 10% OF THE USERS WHO ARE
AWARE OF COOKIES [caps mine] reject all cookies on their browser
(2000):
<http://www.pewinternet.org/reports/toc.asp?Report=19>. 56% of the
surveyed had no knowledge or awareness of cookies whatsoever, which
makes it 10% of about 40%, and about 4%.
A year later, "a recent study by internet research company
WebSideStory [<http://www.websidestory.com/>] appears to indicate that
consumers don't mind cookies at all. The leading internet browsers
offer users the ability to reject cookies--yet people opt to do this
only 0.68 percent of the time. WebSideStory says this low a figure
can't be the result of people simply being unaware that they can
reject cookies." [...]. (Web Shorts,
<http://www.medialifemagazine.com/news2001/apr01/apr02/3_wed/news8wednesday.html>).
While I disagree with WebSideStory's conclusions (and also see:
"Privacy options are a blur", <USA Today
<http://www.usatoday.com/tech/columnist/2001-04-10-weise.htm>), their
methodology could be a complimentary to those used in surveyed.
WebSideStory scanned scores of pages. Users, who respond to surveys,
might answer that they reject all cookies, while their settings are
different.
Another methodological benefit of their approach, is that it refers to
"all" Internet users, although biased towards American ones. Since
users from all around the world visit these sites, the results are
based on global usage.
A considerable diversion from the low percentages abovementioned
(between 0.68$% to 4%), Culnan et. al. (2001) claim that 25% of the
users reject cookies, but their methodology doesn't distinguish
between different methods of cookie rejection.
Culnan, M. J. and G. R. Milne (2001). ?The Culnan-Milne Survey on
Consumers & Online Privacy Notices: Summary of Responses?, in
Interagency Public Workshop: Get Noticed: Effective Financial Privacy
Notices, Washington, D.C.
Further Sources
===============
A Cookie By Any Other Name
Is it safe to use cookies again?
by Al Williams
April 2002
<http://lists.disill.is/www.newarchitectmag.com/documents/s=2412/new1015626767064/>
"According to the Georgia Institute of Technology, fewer than 40
percent of users accepted cookies in 1998. In 1999, a Fulcrum study
showed that the number had grown slightly to 46 percent of all
users?although 21 percent weren't sure whether they accepted cookies
or not. These numbers continued to rise over the years, possibly due
to an increased understanding of how cookies work, and to waning news
coverage. In 2001, the Pew Internet and American Life Project found
that only ten percent of all users actively blocked cookies." (Please
note, though, that those 60% in 1998 or those surveyed in 1999,
included people who did not know what a cookie is, and therefore did
not know if they accepted it or not).
IMPACTS OF USER PRIVACY PREFERENCES ON PERSONALIZED SYSTEMS
MAXIMILIAN TELTZROW, ALFRED KOBSA
http://www.ics.uci.edu/~kobsa/papers/2004-PersUXinECom-kobsa.pdf
(Academic paper from 2003 which could serve as control to the fact
that apart from Pew, Culnan and CyberDialogue, there were no surveys
in the question).
State Official's Guide to Internet Privacy / Cindy J. Lackey
<http://stars.csg.org/reports/2002/SOG_Internet_Privacy.pdf>
I hope this answered your question. I used various search methods,
using terms such as "block/reject cookies" and "internet users", but
the most efficient of all was:
://www.google.com/search?q=%22reject+cookies%22++%22than+*+percent%22+2003&num=50&hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8
If you need any further clarifications on this answer, please let me
know before you tip/rate it. |
,
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