Introduction¶

This document gives instructions on how to set up the Cookieless Tracking feature.

The Statistics feature normally applies a cookie to the browser of the visitor. It is possible to remove this, and still allow you to track the same data from visitors who refuse statistics cookies on the cookie banner.

The data tracked includes browsing behavior, geographical location, device information, and more.

How it works¶

To gather the same data without a cookie, we rely on other pieces of information such as operating system, browser, browser plugins, user IP address, and browser language to assign a unique ID to each visitor in our systems.

The unique ID is only valid for 24 hours and visitor IP addresses are made fully anonymous until they are deleted.

This makes the solution privacy-friendly and prohibits fingerprinting.

Advantages¶

• Practical: When users refuse statistical cookies via the cookie banner, Acquia Optimize can still gain valuable information without placing a cookie on their browser.
• Symbolic: Show your audience that you care about their privacy.
• Privacy: Visitors can rest assured that no unwanted files (cookies) are placed on their browser.
• Legal: While not prohibited yet, cookies are becoming more and more unpopular as a tracking mechanism. In 2019, Google launched the Privacy Sandbox initiative, which aims to create a standard for websites to access user information without compromising the privacy of their visitors. Part of that initiative involves a move away from third-party cookies to gather data.

Disadvantages¶

There are few to no disadvantages with Cookieless Tracking.

• Returning visitors: Since the unique visitor ID that Cookieless Tracking is based on expires after 24 hours, it makes it hard to track returning visitors and build visitor profiles over time. However, our Statistics feature does not provide visitor profiling. You can expect the same quality of visitor data without a cookie.

Additional resources¶

For instructions on how admin users can activate and configure this feature, see:

​Cookieless tracking setup.