diff --git a/src/java/com/threerings/getdown/data/Application.java b/src/java/com/threerings/getdown/data/Application.java
index fc8780d..19d3ad2 100644
--- a/src/java/com/threerings/getdown/data/Application.java
+++ b/src/java/com/threerings/getdown/data/Application.java
@@ -43,7 +43,6 @@ import java.io.InputStreamReader;
 import java.net.MalformedURLException;
 import java.net.URL;
 import java.net.URLClassLoader;
-import java.net.URLConnection;
 
 import java.util.ArrayList;
 import java.util.HashMap;
@@ -353,17 +352,19 @@ public class Application
     }
 
     /**
-     * Sets a cookie for a tracking URL if we have an appropriate property to fetch it from,
-     *  an appropriate cookie name to assign, and the property is set to non-null.
+     * Returns the name of our tracking cookie or null if it was not set.
      */
-    public void maybeSetTrackingCookie (URLConnection conn)
+    public String getTrackingCookieName ()
     {
-        if (_trackingCookieName != null && _trackingCookieProperty != null) {
-            String val = System.getProperty(_trackingCookieProperty);
-            if (val != null) {
-                conn.setRequestProperty("Cookie", _trackingCookieName + "=" + val);
-            }
-        }
+        return _trackingCookieName;
+    }
+
+    /**
+     * Returns the name of our tracking cookie system property or null if it was not set.
+     */
+    public String getTrackingCookieProperty ()
+    {
+        return _trackingCookieProperty;
     }
 
     /**
diff --git a/src/java/com/threerings/getdown/launcher/Getdown.java b/src/java/com/threerings/getdown/launcher/Getdown.java
index 9d2220a..1617e20 100644
--- a/src/java/com/threerings/getdown/launcher/Getdown.java
+++ b/src/java/com/threerings/getdown/launcher/Getdown.java
@@ -853,7 +853,17 @@ public abstract class Getdown extends Thread
         public void run () {
             try {
                 HttpURLConnection ucon = (HttpURLConnection)_url.openConnection();
-                _app.maybeSetTrackingCookie(ucon);
+
+                // if we have a tracking cookie configured, configure the request with it
+                if (_app.getTrackingCookieName() != null &&
+                    _app.getTrackingCookieProperty() != null) {
+                    String val = System.getProperty(_app.getTrackingCookieProperty());
+                    if (val != null) {
+                        ucon.setRequestProperty("Cookie", _app.getTrackingCookieName() + "=" + val);
+                    }
+                }
+
+                // now request our tracking URL and ensure that we get a non-error response
                 ucon.connect();
                 try {
                     if (ucon.getResponseCode() != HttpURLConnection.HTTP_OK) {
@@ -863,6 +873,7 @@ public abstract class Getdown extends Thread
                 } finally {
                     ucon.disconnect();
                 }
+
             } catch (IOException ioe) {
                 Log.warning("Failed to report tracking event [url=" + _url +
                             ", error=" + ioe + "].");