Data Deletion and Cookie Control

Do Tools Facilitate Privacy?

While a plethora of tools have surfaced in the last several years in response to the inundation of user tracking on the internet, there is limited work evaluating their efficacy and effectiveness.

We conducted a semi-structured, within-subjects interview study on 10 subjects to evaluate three privacy tools (Transcend, Cookiebot, and OneTrust). Participants completed four tasks: with and without Transcend, as well as with both Cookiebot and OneTrust tools.

Our results suggest that a user’s understanding of what their tools were doing—whether it be opting-out of cookies or deleting personal data—was incomplete, regardless of the self-reported ease of the tasks or the extent of their previous experiences and expectations with similar interfaces and tools. While tools and tasks suggested that data and cookie deletion were taking place, participants seemed confused about what they had actually done or if what they did truly made a difference.

We recommend a few changes to these selected privacy tools to make them more understandable so that they can be simple enough for users to easily and effectively use them. Tools that meet this criteria must not require extensive use time, effort, and past experience to be usable.

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