It doesn't sound like opting out of Meta's, Google's, or Microsoft's tracking does very much

A new study suggests that, most of the time, opting out from cookies doesn't stop some of the biggest tech companies from tracking you.

By Drew Gillis  |  April 14, 2026 | 12:07pm
Photo: Gary Hershorn/Getty Images
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It doesn't sound like opting out of Meta's, Google's, or Microsoft's tracking does very much

Big tech loves your data. It loves your data so much that it wants to access it even when it tells you it won’t. This, at least, seems to be a conclusion of a new study from the California Privacy Audit, as reported by 404 Media. webXray, a privacy search engine, conducted an audit last month and found that “194 online advertising services ignore legally defined, globally standard, opt-out signals endorsed by regulators” and that “Cookie Choice Banners certified by Google fail to prevent Google from setting cookies after users opt out with a globally standard signal.” 55% of the sites the audit checked set ad cookies even after a user opted out. 

The study found that Google had an 87% opt-out failure rate, and that Microsoft and Meta had 50% and 69% failure rates, respectively. It doesn’t even seem like the companies are going to particularly great lengths to hide these violations; for those who enjoy digging into code, the study shows how the websites get around the opt-out. It writes that in the code it’s “easy to spot, hiding in plain sight.” 

Obviously, these companies dispute these conclusions, per 404. Google in particular says that the study has a “fundamental misunderstanding” of how its products and code work. Together, these companies have already paid billions of dollars in fees for privacy violations such as these. Anyone who wants to look for themself can take a look at the study here.

 
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