{"id":37155,"date":"2026-05-18T13:58:00","date_gmt":"2026-05-18T13:58:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.tun.com\/home\/?p=37155"},"modified":"2026-05-18T19:38:26","modified_gmt":"2026-05-18T19:38:26","slug":"internet-cookies-and-the-open-web-what-bu-research-found","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.tun.com\/home\/internet-cookies-and-the-open-web-what-bu-research-found\/","title":{"rendered":"Internet Cookies and the Open Web: What BU Research Found"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<div class=\"wp-block-group\"><div class=\"wp-block-group__inner-container is-layout-constrained wp-block-group-is-layout-constrained\">\n<div class=\"wp-block-uagb-blockquote uagb-block-e7eb3fc3 uagb-blockquote__skin-border uagb-blockquote__stack-img-none\"><blockquote class=\"uagb-blockquote\"><div class=\"uagb-blockquote__content\">Every time you reject internet cookies, there may be a bigger cost than you realize. A new Boston University study finds that removing third-party cookies slashes publisher revenue by more than a third \u2014 and that privacy-friendly alternatives barely help.<\/div><footer><div class=\"uagb-blockquote__author-wrap uagb-blockquote__author-at-left\"><\/div><\/footer><\/blockquote><\/div>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-group is-content-justification-space-between is-nowrap is-layout-flex wp-container-core-group-is-layout-b0ffac9c wp-block-group-is-layout-flex\"><div style=\"font-size:16px\" class=\"has-text-align-left wp-block-post-author\"><div class=\"wp-block-post-author__content\"><p class=\"wp-block-post-author__name\">The University Network<\/p><\/div><\/div>\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-uagb-social-share uagb-social-share__outer-wrap uagb-social-share__layout-horizontal uagb-block-ee584a31\">\n<div class=\"wp-block-uagb-social-share-child uagb-ss-repeater uagb-ss__wrapper uagb-block-ec619ce7\"><span class=\"uagb-ss__link\" data-href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/sharer.php?u=\" tabindex=\"0\" role=\"button\" aria-label=\"facebook\"><span class=\"uagb-ss__source-wrap\"><span class=\"uagb-ss__source-icon\"><svg xmlns=\"https:\/\/www.w3.org\/2000\/svg\" viewBox=\"0 0 512 512\"><path d=\"M504 256C504 119 393 8 256 8S8 119 8 256c0 123.8 90.69 226.4 209.3 245V327.7h-63V256h63v-54.64c0-62.15 37-96.48 93.67-96.48 27.14 0 55.52 4.84 55.52 4.84v61h-31.28c-30.8 0-40.41 19.12-40.41 38.73V256h68.78l-11 71.69h-57.78V501C413.3 482.4 504 379.8 504 256z\"><\/path><\/svg><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/div>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-uagb-social-share-child uagb-ss-repeater uagb-ss__wrapper uagb-block-32d99934\"><span class=\"uagb-ss__link\" data-href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/share?url=\" tabindex=\"0\" role=\"button\" aria-label=\"twitter\"><span class=\"uagb-ss__source-wrap\"><span class=\"uagb-ss__source-icon\"><svg xmlns=\"https:\/\/www.w3.org\/2000\/svg\" viewBox=\"0 0 512 512\"><path d=\"M389.2 48h70.6L305.6 224.2 487 464H345L233.7 318.6 106.5 464H35.8L200.7 275.5 26.8 48H172.4L272.9 180.9 389.2 48zM364.4 421.8h39.1L151.1 88h-42L364.4 421.8z\"><\/path><\/svg><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/div>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-uagb-social-share-child uagb-ss-repeater uagb-ss__wrapper uagb-block-1d136f14\"><span class=\"uagb-ss__link\" data-href=\"https:\/\/www.linkedin.com\/shareArticle?url=\" tabindex=\"0\" role=\"button\" aria-label=\"linkedin\"><span class=\"uagb-ss__source-wrap\"><span class=\"uagb-ss__source-icon\"><svg xmlns=\"https:\/\/www.w3.org\/2000\/svg\" viewBox=\"0 0 448 512\"><path d=\"M416 32H31.9C14.3 32 0 46.5 0 64.3v383.4C0 465.5 14.3 480 31.9 480H416c17.6 0 32-14.5 32-32.3V64.3c0-17.8-14.4-32.3-32-32.3zM135.4 416H69V202.2h66.5V416zm-33.2-243c-21.3 0-38.5-17.3-38.5-38.5S80.9 96 102.2 96c21.2 0 38.5 17.3 38.5 38.5 0 21.3-17.2 38.5-38.5 38.5zm282.1 243h-66.4V312c0-24.8-.5-56.7-34.5-56.7-34.6 0-39.9 27-39.9 54.9V416h-66.4V202.2h63.7v29.2h.9c8.9-16.8 30.6-34.5 62.9-34.5 67.2 0 79.7 44.3 79.7 101.9V416z\"><\/path><\/svg><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">That pop-up asking whether you want to accept internet cookies has become one of the most familiar \u2014 and most ignored \u2014 moments of modern online life. But a new study from Boston University suggests the decision carries real economic weight, and reflexively hitting &#8220;reject&#8221; could quietly erode the free, ad-supported web that most people rely on every day.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.pnas.org\/doi\/10.1073\/pnas.2603752123\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\" title=\"\">Published<\/a> in <em>Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences<\/em>, the study analyzed roughly 200 million ad impressions worldwide and found that blocking third-party cookies \u2014 the kind placed by advertisers rather than the websites you visit \u2014 reduced publisher ad revenue by more than a third. In the European Union, where online privacy regulations are stricter, that revenue loss climbed to 66%.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow\">\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cInternet cookies\u2014especially third-party cookies\u2014have been central to how online advertising works,\u201d corresponding author Garrett Johnson, an associate professor of marketing at the BU Questrom School of Business, said in a news release. <\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Third-party cookies are those placed by an organization, like an advertiser, not connected to the site you\u2019re on. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow\">\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cIn our study, removing third-party cookies reduced publisher ad revenue by about 35 percent\u2014and about 66 percent in the European Union\u2014showing that cookies still play a major economic role in supporting the open web,\u201d Johnson added.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The European Union has tougher online privacy rules than much of the rest of the world.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Why Cookies Matter to the Web&#8217;s Economy<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Cookies help advertisers identify users as they move across different websites, allowing them to target ads more precisely and measure which campaigns are actually working. That efficiency translates into more advertising dollars flowing to the content creators, news sites and publishers that make up the open web.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow\">\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cIf more users decline cookies, it would likely reduce the effectiveness of digital advertising and the revenue that supports much of the open web,\u201d added lead author Zhengrong Gu, a doctoral candidate at the Questrom School of Business.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The tradeoff, of course, is privacy. Wayne State University researcher Elizabeth Stoycheff <a href=\"https:\/\/theconversation.com\/browser-cookies-make-people-more-cautious-online-study-finds-184219\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\" title=\"\">has written<\/a> that <q>Website cookies are online surveillance tools,<\/q> noting that <q>the commercial and government entities that use them would prefer people not read those notifications too closely.<\/q> The discomfort many users feel is legitimate \u2014 cookies do enable persistent tracking across the internet.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">In response to growing privacy concerns, the industry has explored alternatives. Paywalls, subscription models and cross-site login systems have emerged as workarounds. Tech companies have also experimented with privacy-enhancing technologies, or PETs, designed to serve advertisers without exposing individual browsing histories.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Google&#8217;s Privacy Sandbox Fell Short<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The most prominent PET experiment was Google&#8217;s Privacy Sandbox, a six-year initiative that ultimately collapsed in 2024. One of its tools shared a user&#8217;s general interest categories with advertisers rather than detailed browsing histories \u2014 a promising concept in theory. In practice, the BU researchers found it barely moved the needle.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow\">\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cIn our study, Privacy Sandbox recovered only about 4 percent of the revenue lost when cookies were removed,\u201d added co-author Shunto J. Kobayashi, an assistant professor of marketing at the Questrom School of Business. <\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Kobayashi attributed the weak performance partly to low adoption rates and partly to &#8220;technical frictions, especially slower ad loading times&#8221; that changed the user experience in ways that hurt ad performance.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The researchers write in their paper that their findings, alongside other studies, <q>informed Google&#8217;s decision to abandon its plan to replace cookies with Privacy Sandbox. The episode underscores the difficulty of aligning privacy, performance, and competition goals in digital markets.<\/q><\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">How the Study Was Conducted<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">To test these effects in a real-world setting, the team used data from ad management firm Raptive and drew on a large-scale experiment conducted by Google and overseen by the UK&#8217;s Competition and Markets Authority. Around 60 million desktop and mobile Chrome users were randomly assigned to one of three conditions: cookies enabled, cookies disabled, or cookies replaced by Privacy Sandbox.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow\">\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cThe experiment created a rare opportunity for independent, large-scale evaluation open to external participants,\u201d Johnson added.\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">What This Means for Students and Regulators<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">For college students who grew up online and consume enormous amounts of free digital content \u2014 from streaming platforms to news sites to niche blogs \u2014 the stakes are concrete. If advertising revenue dries up, the free content model that much of the internet runs on becomes harder to sustain.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The findings also carry policy implications. As regulators in Europe and beyond consider tightening online privacy rules even further, Johnson argues the economic evidence deserves serious weight.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow\">\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cOur results provide unusually strong evidence\u2014from a global, industry-wide field experiment\u2014that restricting cookies carries significant economic downsides that regulators should consider,\u201d added Johnson.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">As for his own browser habits, Johnson does not shy away from the question. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">&#8220;From my perspective, accepting cookies creates substantial benefits for the advertising ecosystem and the publishers I care about,&#8221; he said, &#8220;with what I perceive to be little personal risk.&#8221;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<div style=\"height:10px\" aria-hidden=\"true\" class=\"wp-block-spacer\"><\/div>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Source: <\/strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/articles\/2026\/should-you-accept-internet-cookies\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\" title=\"\">Boston University<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Every time you reject internet cookies, there may be a bigger cost than you realize. A new Boston University study finds that removing third-party cookies slashes publisher revenue by more than a third \u2014 and that privacy-friendly alternatives barely help.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":37269,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"single-no-separators","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_uag_custom_page_level_css":"","_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[17],"tags":[2053,129,2051,757,2050,2052,2054,2055,2056],"class_list":["post-37155","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-tech","tag-ad-revenue","tag-boston-university","tag-digital-advertising","tag-google","tag-internet-cookies","tag-online-privacy","tag-privacy-technology","tag-raptive","tag-uk-competition-and-markets-authority"],"acf":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"uagb_featured_image_src":{"full":["https:\/\/www.tun.com\/home\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/37155-internet-cookies-and-the-open-web-what-bu-research-found.png",1536,1024,false],"thumbnail":["https:\/\/www.tun.com\/home\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/37155-internet-cookies-and-the-open-web-what-bu-research-found-150x150.png",150,150,true],"medium":["https:\/\/www.tun.com\/home\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/37155-internet-cookies-and-the-open-web-what-bu-research-found-300x200.png",300,200,true],"medium_large":["https:\/\/www.tun.com\/home\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/37155-internet-cookies-and-the-open-web-what-bu-research-found-768x512.png",768,512,true],"large":["https:\/\/www.tun.com\/home\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/37155-internet-cookies-and-the-open-web-what-bu-research-found-1024x683.png",1024,683,true],"1536x1536":["https:\/\/www.tun.com\/home\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/37155-internet-cookies-and-the-open-web-what-bu-research-found.png",1536,1024,false],"2048x2048":["https:\/\/www.tun.com\/home\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/37155-internet-cookies-and-the-open-web-what-bu-research-found.png",1536,1024,false]},"uagb_author_info":{"display_name":"The University Network","author_link":"https:\/\/www.tun.com\/home\/author\/funky_junkie\/"},"uagb_comment_info":0,"uagb_excerpt":"Every time you reject internet cookies, there may be a bigger cost than you realize. A new Boston University study finds that removing third-party cookies slashes publisher revenue by more than a third \u2014 and that privacy-friendly alternatives barely help.","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tun.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37155","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tun.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tun.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tun.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tun.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=37155"}],"version-history":[{"count":21,"href":"https:\/\/www.tun.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37155\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":37200,"href":"https:\/\/www.tun.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37155\/revisions\/37200"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tun.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/37269"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tun.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=37155"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tun.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=37155"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tun.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=37155"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}