Awareness of internet cookies in Czechia 2021, by age

By 2021, most adults in Czechia have already come across the term internet cookies at least once in their lifetime. This share decreased with greater age, just a internet penetration does. Most age groups also knew the purpose of these could be targeted online advertising. However, the share of those who changed or adjusted the cookies settings on their devices was much lower. While 80.2 percent of individuals in Czechia aged 16 to 24 knew the purpose of cookies, only 30.1 percent ever changed their settings. This figure peaked in the following age groups of 25 to 34-year-olds and then began to decrease.

What are internet cookies?

Internet cookies are data saved on a user’s end device (usually a browser) when visiting a website. They react whenever the user revisits this webpage, sending information back to the source. This can be used for remembering passwords on a website. Aside from a technical function, they can also be used as a tracker for profiling and advertising purposes. This leaves many people worried about their private information. For example, most of Czechia’s internet users were concerned about their online privacy to a certain degree in 2021.

How is the awareness elsewhere?

Adjusting cookies is one of the instruments for personal information protection in the online world. Therefore, it is used by individuals around the globe. Over a fourth of respondents from major countries, including the USA, the UK, and Germany, stated they disabled third-party cookies in their browsers in 2021. That same year in another of Czechia‘s neighboring countries, Poland, almost a third of the respondents said they sometimes decline cookies on a website.