On The Trail

A new report is mixing up the cookie deletion question even more:

• Atlas: Cookie Deletion Figures Exaggerated Wildly by Self-Reported Data
• Cookie Death Small Potatos, More Product of Spyware Measures

Atlas’s report found that even though 42% of their sample said they deleted cookies weekly, on average they really deleted them once every 45 days. The earlier Jupiter report used a similar survey methodology, but they didn’t actually set a cookie and measure how long it lasted.
[[image:cookie_deletion_chart.jpg:Cookie Deletion Chart:center:0]]
Naysayers to Atlas’s report say that Atlas has a vested interest in cookies working correctly because they sell tracking tools that are dependent on cookies to get reliable data. This is true, but in my opinion Atlas’s results are very believable.