A visible, alarming notice: six in ten rejected cookies
About 22% rejected cookies with the comparison notice. Greater visibility and a stronger threat each separately went along with more rejections.
The key idea
Greater visibility and a stronger threat each went along with more cookie rejections. Together, they exceeded the comparison version, without evidence of an interaction.
The study, in plain language
A notice can be on screen and still go unnoticed. On a simulated website, people chose whether to accept or reject nonessential cookies after seeing messages that varied in visibility and in the strength of the described threat.
Greater visibility, and also a high-threat message, each separately led to more rejections. The condition combining both had more rejections than the comparison condition, with no detected interaction between the two features.
The intermediate conditions showed a contrast: a high-threat message with low visibility produced a result similar to a low-threat message with high visibility. Different ways of presenting the notice led to similar rejection rates in this specific decision.
What they found
- More people rejected cookies when the notice described a greater threat.
- There were also more rejections with a more visible notice, and with both features together than with the comparison version.
- High threat with low visibility and low threat with high visibility had similar rejection rates.
Something to think about
When a cookie notice rushes or alarms you, consider whether your choice responds to the message or to which cookies you want to accept.
How they studied it
An online survey experiment with 1,486 participants. They visited a simulated website and saw notices that varied in visibility and described threat before deciding about nonessential cookies.
What the study cannot show
- The outcome measures cookie rejection on an experimental website and does not necessarily protect data in other contexts. Red text in all conditions may have weakened the visibility contrast, and responses to a fictional website may differ from real decisions.
- That enlarging any notice prevents incidents, that fear is universally effective, that participants understood all technical consequences of cookies, or that stated behavior persists outside the experiment.
The original study
When information security depends on font size: how the saliency of warnings affects protection behavior
Source under CC BY 4.0. English adaptation and explanation by PaperFlow, with AI assistance. The text has been reorganized for a general audience; it is not the complete paper and does not imply endorsement by its authors.
One study alone does not represent a field's consensus. Educational content does not replace professional advice. Report a possible error.
