Why tracking cookies are evil

[Graybeard]

The Cookie Monster Part I

Cookies if you are not aware of what the technical descriptions are:

• are static text files placed on the client computer with that user's browser permissions.
• these cookies have an expiration date
• --however that date is often theoretical because of a user deleting his browser cookies at will.

Also, as many cases as there are of cookie stuffing by affiliates --there are also many unknown or unproven cases of cookie shaving by offer-owners that are sponsors of affiliates.

It would be fair to note that affiliate networks could be cheated out of revenue and the revenue loss appearing as no conversion to both to the network and the network's affiliate.

Cookies are one of the last Wild West games, and unregulated, left overs from the old days of the internet.

Cookies are a common thread with people that are not that technologically sophisticated with tracking methods -or- are profiting somehow by the use of cookie tracking.

I think cookies are are an act of blind faith and really can't be depended on for the reasons I have stated above.

 

[Graybeard]

The Cookie Monster Part II

Recognizing returning visitors

If your referral do not join (or make an account) most sellers (vendors/sponsors/offer-owners) will make claims that your affiliate cookie will protect your conversion pay-out for some period of time -- they are almost telling a lie.

The cookie fallacy

Studies

Cookie Retention Study Reveals Important Data - Affiliate Marketing Blog by Geno Prussakov

The above study was done independently in 2009

I did a similar study on one of my websites about the same time and got a similar result.

I don't think cookies retention has gotten any better in the past few years. In fact with the new EU GDPR and the upcoming California Internet Privacy Law (going into effect 2020) it's not going to get better -- guaranteed!

Someone is losing income -- guess who?

 

[Graybeard]

In the past 10 years I have personally lost as much as $200K this way -- the old cookie scam.
So much for serious, and fundamental, issues ...

 

[Graybeard]

You are getting ripped off and you don't even care ... (<shrugs>)

 

[Graybeard]

Reject insecure SameSite=None cookies - Chrome Platform Status
A cookie associated with a cross-site resource at Facebook - Log In or Sign Up was set without the `SameSite` attribute. A future release of Chrome will only deliver cookies with cross-site requests if they are set with `SameSite=None` and `Secure`. You can review cookies in developer tools under Application>Storage>Cookies and see more details at Cookies default to SameSite=Lax - Chrome Platform Status and Reject insecure SameSite=None cookies - Chrome Platform Status.

Internet *Armageddon * is coming