New York Times on Government Use of Cookies:

Kudos to the New York Times for addressing the government’s use of cookies in an editorial in this morning’s paper . As the piece indicates, currently there is no ban in place which prevents a federal agency from using tracking devices, such as cookies. Unfortunately, it is an all or nothing policy, which allows agencies in the government to use cookies with the approval of their agency head or a specific designee. If approval is granted by an agency head, the current use of cookies is allowed without any substantial privacy protections or use limitations. A new policy is needed that would both enable government web managers to ensure federal web sites are optimized for the public and to make the government policy more privacy protective. By addressing issues that the Future of Privacy Forum and other advocates have proposed, such as limiting the retention of Internet Protocol addresses and setting policies that would increase transparency and user control, we can have our cake (or our cookies in this case) and eat it too.