Study shows behavior patterns of internet users regarding cookies

Research has been carried out to see how European consumers interact with the cookie consent mechanisms online.

The study focused in particular on how consumers react to different designs of cookie pop-ups and how different design choices can influence users’ data protection choices. The researchers collected around 5000 cookie notices from leading websites to get an idea of how different cookie consent mechanisms are currently being implemented. They also worked with a German e-commerce site over a period of four months to investigate how more than 82,000 users of the site interacted with the different cookie consent designs. The designs were adapted by the researchers to analyse how different preferences and designs affect the individual’s decision.

Their research showed that the majority of cookie consent notices are placed at the bottom of the screen (58%), do not block interaction with the site (93%) and offer no other option than the confirmation button (86%), leaving the user no choice.

The majority (57%) also tries to get users consent through the design, for example by highlighting the “Agreed” button with a color, while the link to “more options” is made less visible.

The research showed that interaction with consent notices varied widely, between 5-55%, depending on where they were positioned or what preferences were set. More users clicked the “Accept” button when it was highlighted by color (50.8% on mobile, 26.9% on desktop). In contrast, only 39.2% on mobile and 21.1% on desktop clicked the “Accept” button if it was displayed as a text link. As for third parties, around 30% of mobile users and 10% of desktop users accepted all third parties if the checkboxes were preselected. On the other hand, only a small fraction (< 0.1%) allowed all third parties when given the opt-in choice.

They also found that the more choices are given in a cookie notice, the more likely it is that the visitor will refuse the use of cookies. In fact, they concluded that with GDPR-compliant cookie notices, where the website user is free to choose which cookie categories to activate, only 0.1% of users would allow all cookie categories to be set.