Website cookies and voluntary disclosure

Abstract

Using website cookie information from U.S. firms’ websites, I measure consumer data collected through cookies and examine how such data affect firms’ accounting information environments. Cookies provide granular and real-time consumer data to firms’ internal information environments and may improve the quality of internal information that managers rely on for external reporting. I find that firms with more cookies issue management sales forecasts more frequently and devote a larger share of disclosures in 10-K filings to customer, marketing, and product topics. The effects are stronger when cookie-collected data are more relevant or larger in volume and when firms have better data analytic t..