The Effects of Regional Cookie Regulations on Analytics
Browser Activity
Measuring browser activity relies on cookies: packets of data that track activity between servers and browsers. Depending on where visitors access your guide and make their cookies consent decision, regional regulations may impact their decision, and thus their representation in your guide’s visitor data.
- In the EU, regulations require that users are opted out of cookies by default. Users can decide to opt in manually.
- This is also true for users in the US state of California.
- For other states in the US, users are opted in to cookies by default, but regulations require that they have the option to opt out.
A high percentage of visitors in the EU and California will be automatically opted out of cookies. Thus, the number of people opening your guide in a mobile browser will always look significantly lower than the actual number of visitors in those regions.
In the rest of the world, the reported mobile browser traffic will be lower than the actual data, but the difference is unlikely to be as pronounced.
QR Codes in iOS
Measuring QR codes doesn’t rely on cookies, but it is impacted by Apple’s Identifier for Advertisers (IDFA). When a visitor opens the Bloomberg Connects app for the first time on an iPhone, they will see an IDFA prompt. The prompt requests permission to track activity across apps and websites. If a user denies this request, their QR code scans cannot be tracked.
However, note that visitors’ scans from before they decline the IDFA in the app are still recorded.