Thursday, January 22, 2009
URL: http://news.cnet.com/8301-13739_3-10147726-46.html
The Obama White House has quietly granted YouTube an exemption from strict federal rules that prohibit the use of cookies to collect information from visitors to federal agency Web sites.
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"The new White House website privacy policy promises that the site will not use long-term tracking cookies, complying with a decade old rule
prohibiting such user tracking by federal agencies. However, Obama's
legal team has quietly exempted YouTube from this rule. Visitors to the
official White House blog will receive long-term tracking cookies
whenever they surf to a web-page with an embedded YouTube video — even those users that do not click the "play" button. As CNET reports, no other company has been singled out and rewarded with such a waiver."
Summary from the CNET article:
"The
new Web site for Obama's White House is already drawing attention from
privacy activists and tech bloggers. While the initial focus has been
on the site's policies relating to search engine robots, a far more
interesting tidbit has so far escaped the public eye: the White House
has quietly exempted YouTube from strict rules relating to the use of
cookies on federal agency Web sites.
The new White House Web
site privacy policy promises that the site will not use long-term
tracking cookies, complying with a decade-old rule prohibiting such
user tracking by federal agencies. However, the privacy policy then
reveals that Obama's legal team has exempted YouTube from this rule
...."