The Department for Science, Innovation and Technology has published the findings of a report from the Behavioural Insights Team which evaluated the public’s attitude to browser-based cookie settings. The report includes valuable insight into the public’s general attitude towards – and knowledge about – cookies, and whether changes in the design of cookie settings can have a discernible effect on the choices that users make about their privacy preferences.

The report was commissioned against the background of findings that a significant portion of internet users overlook or ignore cookie banners on websites. This leads to many simply automatically accepting cookies even if they separately express concerns about wanting to protect their data, giving rise to the so-called ‘privacy paradox’.  The report sought to investigate whether changes to the design of cookie banners and settings might address the privacy paradox by helping people make more informed decisions that are consistent with their privacy preferences. This was of particularly interest in the light of discussions of a possibility of moving away from the current website-based cookie settings towards browser-based settings which would reduce the inconvenience of choosing cookie settings when visiting every new website.

As an initial point, the report is clear that there are “widespread misconceptions” about the type of data that cookies collect, but that, in general, just over half of participants were ‘somewhat or very comfortable’ with sharing their data with websites and organisations. As for the type of data people were prepared to share, participants were more comfortable with sharing data with “practical functionalities where advantages for their user experience are obvious or immediate” such as their website preferences or login details than data about things that they looked at on other websites.

The report found that a majority of web users will accept all cookies when faced with a ‘neutral’ cookie system, namely one which simply presents a user with the option to ‘accept all’ or ‘decline all’ cookies. When users are given the opportunity to customise their cookie settings, the report found that if accepting all cookies is the recommended option, there is no discernible change in the behaviour of users as compared to ‘neutral settings’. However, if declining all cookies is the recommended option, it will encourage more participants to decline.

When it came to the design of cookie banners, the report found that providing more granularity in choice can encourage more customisation by users, and that employing ‘interactive’ ways to encourage users to think about cookie preferences could be effective. For example, a sliding scale setting was tested which allowed users to select where their preferences lay, in general terms, as regards their privacy. Customisation options also resulted in greater satisfaction of the users’ experiences.

As for browser-based cookie settings, opinions were divided. A slim majority of participants were persuaded that setting up their cookie preferences once and for all at a browser level, rather than on individual websites, was preferable. However, even then, the majority opinion was that users should be able to set up different cookie settings for different types of websites, and many supported the view that browser-cookie settings should not only be able to be changed at any time, but that there should also be regular reminders to review and/or update their settings.

In its conclusion, the report states that if browser-based cookie management systems replace website level settings, features should be included that “enhance web users’ feelings of control over their data” and that, when it comes to the design of the banners, “cookie setting design should attempt to disrupt users’ habits of automatically accepting through novel designs to create a dissonance with what they are used to seeing”.

To read the report in full, click here.