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Cookie Baking Still a Favorite

Recently at an affiliate community there was a great discussion between Stephen Messer of LinkShare and Todd Crawford of Commission Junction debating over the various merits of their respective tracking systems.

Afterall the much maligned cookie seems to be under constant assault from privacy advocates and anti-spyware companies and if you read my recent journal entry with Jeff Doak you can see while there are alternatives cookies still remain a favorite although their use is perhaps best used in a hybrid tracking environments.

Todd advanced a personal study that I found interesting so I decided to double check the math myself and asked him for the raw list which he was kind enough to send over.

I visited each of the merchants LinkShare lists on their public featured merchants page and like Todd I found that over 71% require cookies in order to even use the shopping carts at their sites. Therefore even if a user had cookies disabled they would still not get counted at over 71% of the merchants- they would not even be able to shop!

You can verify the list below and I think the community would benefit from a broader study looking at retailers across all the networks to see which ones mandate the use of cookies to shop. To further your research simply turn off your cookies and see how difficult it is to surf in a “stateless” Internet.

For consistency I used the same methodology as Todd Crawford. Keep in mind the study is unscientific but you can find the parameters below.

- I visited their site with cookies turned off on my browser.
- I then added an item to the shopping cart
- I continued shopping
- I would try to add another item

The results can be found below:

http://www.1800flowers.com/ Yes
http://www.alibris.com/ Yes
http://www.store.apple.com/ No
http://www.avon.com/ Yes
http://www.barenecessities.com/ No
http://www.beachbody.com/ Yes
http://www.bluenile.com/ Yes
http://www.buy.com/ Yes
http://www.championcatalog.com/ Yes
http://www.coldwatercreek.com/ Yes
http://www.cuddledown.com/ No
http://www.cooking.com/ Yes
http://www.cutterbuck.com/ Yes
http://www.delias.com/ No
http://www.dell.com/ Yes
http://www.delta.com/ Yes
http://www.directv.com/ Yes
http://disney.store.go.com/ Yes
http://www.domestications.com/ No
http://www.drugstore.com/ Yes
http://www.ebgames.com/ Yes
http://www.ediets.com/ Yes
http://www.eluxury.com/ No
http://www.babystyle.com/ Yes
http://www.etoys.com/ No
http://www.footlocker.com/ No
http://www.florist.com/ Yes
http://www.fragrancenet.com/ Yes
http://www.franklinmint.com/ No
http://www.ftd.com/ Yes
http://www.fujitsupc.com/ Yes
http://www.fuller.com/ Yes
http://www.gardeners.com/ Yes
http://www.gemplers.com/ No
http://www.tgw.com/ Yes
http://www.gumps.com/ No
http://www.guthyrenker.com/ No
http://www.hallmark.com/ No
http://www.hrblock.com/ Yes
http://www.hickoryfarms.com/ Yes
http://www.cambridgesoundworks.com Yes
http://www.hotwire.com/ Yes
http://www.improvementscatalog.com Yes
http://www.internationalmale.com No
http://www.iomega.com/ No
http://www.jr.com/ Yes
http://www.jcrew.com/ Yes
http://www.justmysize.com/ Yes
http://www.kaptest.com/ Yes
http://www.kbtoys.com/ No
http://www.landsend.com/ No
http://www.lillianvernon.com/ Yes
http://www.macys.com/ Yes
http://www.mcafee.com/ Yes
http://www.mikasa.com/ Yes
http://www.mondera.com/ Yes
http://www.motormint.com/ Yes
http://www.mrsfields.com/ No
http://www.nordstrom.com/ Yes
http://www.officedepot.com/ No
http://www.omahasteaks.com/ No
http://www.onehanesplace.com/ Yes
http://www.orbitz.com/ No
http://www.orientaltrading.com/ Yes
http://www.overstock.com/ Yes
http://www.paulfredrick.com/ Yes
http://www.performanceproducts.com Yes
http://www.pb.com/ Yes
http://www.register.com/ No
http://www.rei.com/ Yes
http://www.relaxtheback.com/ No
http://www.ross-simons.com/ Yes
http://www.sfmusicbox.com/ Yes
http://shop.scholastic.com/ Yes
http://www.sierratradingpost.com/ Yes
http://www.sharperimage.com/ Yes
http://www.sonymusicstore.com/ Yes
http://www.surefit.com/ Yes
http://www.target.com/ No
http://www.timelife.com/ Yes
http://www.thingsremembered.com/ Yes
http://www.tupperware.com/ Yes
http://www.vitaminshoppe.com/ No
http://www.walmart.com/ Yes
http://www.wine.com/ Yes
http://www.zearth.com/ Yes

In short if the entry says “yes” and you don’t accept cookies you will not be doing any shopping at that destination.

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