This is very true, and truly annoying. If you haven't captured a customer as a customer within 3 months, how likely do you think it is that you'll ever care about the cookie they left on their computer which is now sitting under 40 feet of refuse-pile-turned-golf-course? Unfortunately, this has far less to do with evil marketers, and far more to do with lack of forethought. "Don't be so quick to attribute to malice what can be attributed to idiocy!" (or just plain not thinking about things up front)