Cookies Study: 1 in 4 Americans Blindly Accept Internet Cookies, But Most Don't Know What They Do

We may be a little more obsessed with cookies than the average web surfer: after all, it’s in our name. But for something that plays such a pivotal role in how people use the internet on a daily basis, there’s a huge knowledge gap surrounding what cookies are and what they do.

So, what do people know and not know about cookies? We surveyed 1,000 U.S. adults to find out how much they know about how cookies work, how they manage cookies, and more.

Key findings

• Less than 40% of people know what internet cookies are and what they do.
• The vast majority of people (87%) have noticed hyper-personalized ads for products they recently researched. Of that group, nearly 90% find those ads creepy or invasive.
• Roughly one-quarter (24%) of people blindly accept cookies when they get to a webpage.

Do Americans understand cookies?

Anyone who uses the internet on a regular basis has encountered cookies, whether through pop-ups asking for cookie permissions or by clearing cookies out of their browser. For how often we’re confronted with cookies, the assumption is that people know what they are. But is that true?

However, less than 2-in-5 people (39%) say they feel very or mostly confident that they understand what cookies are, with just 15% being very confident. While most people say they lack a strong knowledge of cookies, about one-third (29%) claim they are at least somewhat confident they understand what cookies are and how they work.

You can manage cookies when you first access a website, but users also have the ability to change cookies settings after the fact from within their browser. This includes the ability to disable cookies or to clear them entirely. While many people don’t fully understand how cookies work, 4 out of every 5 people claim that they know how to clear and disable cookies.

How cookies work

Before getting more specific about what people think cookies do, it’s important to know what they actually do.

Cookies are pieces of information that are produced and stored by a web server when someone is browsing the internet. This can include data that users enter into a website such as passwords and usernames, or behaviors that the site collects, like the ads a user clicks on or items they view on e-commerce sites.

Some cookies help websites verify the authenticity of a user and prevent fraud, while others help the site function properly by doing things like remembering the user’s preferred language. Some cookies will even customize a user’s experience on a site, including the types of content and advertisements they see.

When you visit a site and allow it to use cookies, here’s what happens:

1. The site sends information in the form of a “cookie” to your browser, which then stores the cookie in the browser folder of your hard drive.
2. During future visits to the site, your browser then sends the cookie back to the website, complete with your identifying information.
3. This allows the website to load with a personalized user experience based on the information contained within the cookie.

Cookies can store important personal information. And as with anything private, it is important for users to know how their cookies might be used by the companies who collect them.

So what exactly do people think cookies are used for? We presented a list of both real and fake ways that sites use cookies to see what people actually know.

The good news: About half of people correctly said that cookies are used to collect analytic data on site usage, personalize online ads, and store personal data.

On the other hand, less than one-third knew that cookies are also used to authenticate users and accounts. More than one-fifth of respondents (22%) said they think sites use cookies to sign users up for email lists involuntarily, and 13% said they have no idea at all what cookies do.

Respondents' overall responses here reveal some interesting insights into how well people understand cookies (or don’t). Just 11% of respondents were able to correctly identify all of the ways cookies are actually used, while 19% didn’t select a single correct one. Additionally, more than half of respondents, 53%, selected at least one of our fake answers.

How people interact with internet cookies

For many people, the only time they think about internet cookies is when a pop-up opens on a site asking if they want to accept or reject cookies. But how many people are actually taking the time to investigate how cookies are used? And how many blindly accept or reject cookies without digging any deeper?

1 in 4 respondents (24%) say that they blindly accept all cookies when prompted. The most common approach to prompts asking users to accept cookies is taking the time to manually select specific cookies to allow, something that 27% of people report doing. An additional quarter (25%) say that they choose to reject all optional cookies by default. 

What happens if you reject internet cookies

Since users have the option to reject cookies, what do people think happens if they choose to do so?

Despite how important they appear to be, cookies are mostly optional, and simply serve to try and improve and personalize the user experience on a given website. In most cases rejecting cookies mostly impacts future visits to a site, like having to re-input data, settings, or preferences on subsequent visits.

Around 40% of people correctly identified that rejecting cookies means they may not get the best user experience on a website. Around one-quarter of people said they think rejecting cookies means that sites cannot store and sell your information, and your personal data will not be saved.

In some rare cases, you may not be able to access the website in question without accepting at least some cookies.

To show just how little people understand how rejecting cookies works, only 2% of people were able to correctly identify every single real consequence of rejecting cookies.

How people feel about cookie-based advertising

One common type of cookies is called a tracking cookie, which tracks a user’s behavior and sells that data to other companies that use it to send targeted advertising to other websites that the user visits. While this can be seen as convenient in theory, we wanted to find out how people actually feel about this practice.

Encountering hyper-personalized ads online is incredibly common. The vast majority of people (87%) report that they have experienced the phenomenon of looking up a specific product or service online and then seeing ads for similar offerings while browsing the internet afterwards.

Having established that nearly 9-in-10 internet users have firsthand experience receiving personalized and targeted advertising thanks to cookies, we wanted to see how people feel about this tactic. 87% of people who have experienced targeted ads say they find it creepy or invasive in some way, including 46% who say they “definitely” find it unsettling. Only 2% of users report that they do not find this practice invasive or creepy at all.

Advice from the experts

Although certain third-party internet cookies may improve one's browsing experience, why shouldn't people blindly accept them?

In which ways can you best evaluate when a website is storing necessary vs. unnecessary details about your personal identity?

Why is it important to regularly clear your web browser's cache and internet cookies?

^{Some responses may have been slightly edited for clarity and brevity.}

Tips for a safe web-browsing experience

• Use an ad blocker to achieve a more secure browsing experience. Familiarize yourself with the best ad blockers and choose the features most necessary for your personal online safety.
• Be mindful of pop-up notifications. When should you accept cookies? Every website’s policy varies and it’s important to understand how your information could be used for advertising and retargeting.
• Enhance your privacy. Figure out how to clear computer cookies based on your preferred browser, and complete the necessary steps.

Methodology

To collect the data for this survey, our team at All About Cookies surveyed 1,000 U.S. adults in September 2023 and August 2025. Both surveys were conducted via Pollfish. All respondents were U.S. citizens over the age of 18, and remained anonymous.