Delete Cookies, Inflate Net Traffic Estimates

Posted by kdawson on Tuesday April 17, 2007 @05:29AM from the throwing-them-off dept.

eldavojohn writes "In my browser, I regularly go to the tools menu and clear my private data. This includes my cookies. As a result, people like me who destroy cookies by the thousands may be inflating estimates of Web traffic by up to 150 percent. People have good reasons for clearing out cookies — we've heard about bad cookies before (and I think the FCC is still investigating the issue). But every time you delete cookies, many of the sites you've visited count you as a new visitor next time."

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150%? by catbutt · 2007-04-17 05:37 · Score: 5, Informative

That assumes an awful lot of people do that.

I don't do it because it is a pain to constantly log back in everywhere. But I seriously doubt more than 2% of the non-slashdot crowd does it.