According to yet another study shedding light on the rate of consumer cookie deletion - this one to be released this week by Insight Express and Horizon Interactive - of the 70 percent of consumers who use some form of anti-spyware software, 79.5 percent say they run the software daily or weekly, 57.6 percent delete every item pointed out by the software, and 48.3 percent delete cookies through the software. That's roughly 27 percent of online consumers clearing their cookies weekly through anti-spyware software alone, according to a Horizon press release. It quotes Lee Smith, CEO of Insight Express: "Although we have learned that there is a large discrepancy between what consumers claim and what they actually do, the numbers cannot be ignored."

MarketingVOX last week published a canvas of industry experts' opinions on the meaning of the seemingly conflicting accounts of cookie deletion.

Most metrics gurus and e-commerce optimizers indicated it was a concern, but one that had not yet risen to the level at which cookie deletion was significantly polluting their ability to make the proper calls.