Safer Internet Day: Are you restricting cookies? In 2021, 80% of people in the EU aged 16 to 74 who used the internet in the last three months prior to the survey knew that cookies can be used to trace people’s online activities.

11 comments

  1. Awareness was higher (86%) among younger users (aged 16 to 24) and lower (74%) among older users (aged 55 to 74).

    Although most people seem to be aware of this situation, only slightly above one third (36%) of users aged 16 to 74 reported that they had changed their internet browser settings to prevent or limit cookie use.

    Additionally, only 21% use software that limits the ability to track their activities on the internet (in the 3 months prior to the survey), a 1-percentage point increase compared with 2020.

    When it comes to changing the internet browser settings to prevent or limit cookies, the highest proportion of internet users, as compared with the EU average, was found in Finland (56%), the Netherlands (51%), followed by Germany and Luxembourg (both 46%).

    By contrast, a considerably smaller proportion of the internet users had taken such action in Cyprus (11%), Romania (16%) and Bulgaria (21%).

    Among the EU Member States, internet users in Belgium were more serious about online tracking, with 51% using software to limit the ability to track activities online. They were followed by users in Malta (32%), the Netherlands (31%), Ireland (28%) and Sweden (27%).

    By contrast, the lowest shares of users that use this kind of software were in Bulgaria, Romania and Latvia (all 12%).

  3. There’s more than cookies to trace people: logins and fingerprinting are two to name.

  5. I have made a rule for myself that if I can’t restrict the cookies easily, I will go to another website. There will always be another site that has the same information without ‘dark patterns’ trying to make me accept the cookies. I hate when they make the design so convoluted in purpose that It’s hard to know how to restrict the cookies.

    I’m from Finland

  8. What’s wrong in getting ads for things you want and seek.

    Nobody’s personally interested in your sex dolls you keep in closet because you’re nobody and have no importance

  9. There should be a law that says that the reject all cookies button should be as easily accessible as the allow all cookies button.

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