With the cookie paranoia at an all time high, more people than ever seem to be working to make sure that their machines are cookie free whenever possible. The flip side to this of course is that this leaves Websites without the ability to track specific critical data that is important to keeping things moving forward for them.

More than half of Internet users have deleted cookies, seriously undermining website operators’ ability to measure consumer behavior on their sites, a market research firm said Monday.

Cookies are small files often uploaded to people’s computers as they visit websites run by retailers, entertainment companies, newspapers and other businesses. The applications are often used to track visitors’ behavior on a site in order to build improvements later, or to offer visitors products or services they may be interested in based on previous visits, a process called personalization. In addition, cookie-gathered information is often pivotal for advertising campaigns and email marketing.

“Cookies, 99 out of a 100 times, are not an invasion of a consumer’s privacy or security,” Eric T. Peterson, analyst for JupiterResearch, a division of Jupitermedia Corp., said. “They’re just harmless little text files.”