NONE: ONLINE-ADS>> How many are refusing cookies?
ONLINE-ADS>> How many are refusing cookies?
Harrison, Steve (merlin_at_advant.com)
Tue, 17 Feb 1998 13:43:44 -0600
On the original question:
>Wondering if anyone knows what percentage of the population refuse to
>accept cookies (manually or automatically)? Can you point to a
>reference to back this up?
I found it interesting that two respondents to this question offered
contrasting insights, with one stating: "I have concluded, based on those
facts, that almost none of *my* site's audience cares whether they get
cookies or not" and the other: "Of the 12 people in my company, only 2
accept cookies without warnings."
As web marketers, we should not loose sight of the fact that we are being
less than forthright with our clients if we sell them our marketing
services, and then go about the business of fostering dark suspicions about
shopping on the InterNet. If we aid the propagation of the boogeyman image
of cookies, the damage inherent to that will be expressed by the numbers of
potential customers who will bolt when our client's shopping cart software
attempts to place its cookie.
Anything good will always have its counterfeits and misapplications. I get
asked to evaluate many different web sites and I turned my cookie warnings
off years ago. That gets me some pretty bizarre spam. But to me, that
aggravation isn't worth making a stink about it. The last time I did turn on
cookie warnings was just to see how many sites are using them. It was more
of a nuisance and interruption to me, all those warnings, that it was on
that setting less than a day. Lots of cookies out there.
For me, to publicly disparage the technology that earns me some spam would
also make less palatable the acceptance of benign and friendly cookies for
shopping cart softwares -- and most of the good ones use cookies. Guilt by
association, detraction from sales, and this web marketer helped foster it?
No thanks.
Can we cost our clients even one potential customer by advocating the
suspicious handling of cookies and still say we're marketing pros? Do
cookies represent a danger worthy of traumatizing the general InterNet
public if it means detraction from their proper use?
Sure, surveys will indicate suspicions of cookies -- if asked. Likewise,
there are those who will agonize and wail over our cruelty to ants -- if
asked, and then jog miles down a sidewalk without even looking down.
Steve Harrison, President
Web Merlin Marketing
http://www.bidness.com/merlin
merlin_at_bidness.com
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