The impact of cookie notices in consumer´s trust in news media websites

Abstract

With the GDPR, websites need permission from their users, to gather and use the information about them that is collected, so nowadays, when someone wants to access a new website, they encounter cookie notices asking if they accept the access and use of their information that is collected by the cookies in the sites. According to previous studies, news reading has become one of the most popular activities when surfacing the internet, and news websites are the ones with the highest number of third-party cookies and the type of site that provides more cookie notices. The goal of this research is to study the impact of cookie notices in the consumer's trust news media websites. To achieve this goal, a questionnaire was conducted and the results supported the hypothesis that most people knows what cookies are and the purposes they serve, and when it comes to cookie notices, users not only prefer when they are given not only the options to accept or decline, but also to select the purposes and the partners they wish to give permission, but also that the notices that provides them with multiple option given them a bigger sense of trust and safety. It was also found that when people have the knowledge that these requirements are not being fulfilled, it leads not only to disappointment and insecurity towards the websites, but also leads to distrust the news media websites and damage the credibility of the information and content that they provide.