We wanted to place this stat on our record. ComScore did a report in June 2007 where it examined [my italics] a “a passive first-party unique identifier cookie for a major Web property (Yahoo!) and a passive third-party unique identifier cookie for a major ad server (DoubleClick). Each cookie is believed to be representative of cookies delivered to the U.S. Internet population and each reaches well in excess of 100 million Internet users per month. These two cookies were selected to maximize reach across the Internet user base to provide as complete a view as possible of consumers’ overall cookie management behavior. The study is based on activity observed within approximately 400,000 home computers during the month of December 2006. This sample was statistically weighted to represent the U.S. home Internet user population along key geo-demographic variables.”
Clearly, Doubleclick gathers tremendous amounts of user data and is considered the standard for testing usage behavior across the Internet platform. Its merging with Google poses serious threats to consumer privacy, whether cookies are crumbled or not.
source: comScore Cookie Deletion Study.
