Peter Swire of the Center for
American Progress is
urging Congress to enact technical measures that enable users
to opt out of online cookies-typically invisible and unobtrusive
digital trackers which send information about a user’s behavior
back to their hosts. This isn’t a new thing for Swire; previously,
he’s
complained that current technologies used to block tracking
cookies are too difficult. But what’s worth noting here is the
Center for American Progress’s own policy on cookies:
The Center for American
Progress Action Fund may use session cookies to enhance the
experience of users. A session cookie expires when a user closes
the browser in which the Center for American Progress Action Fund’s
website was viewed. As with all cookies, users can personalize
their browser settings to reject session cookies.
In other words, CAP uses cookies
to track user behavior and provides no way to opt out other than
what a user’s browser currently allows. Nor does CAP go out of its
way to warn users of its cookies policy; the text above is located
on the
privacy policy page, the link to which is in small print
stuffed at the bottom of their page design.
Now, it’s true that CAP is not
using these cookies to deliver advertising, the main focus of
Swire’s concern, but the fact that CAP employs cookies to “enhance
the experience of users” at all-and without much in the way of
notice-suggests that cookies can and do provide users with real
value, and that most web surfers would probably be just fine
without noisy, invasive warnings about their presence. Meanwhile,
it seems a largely frivolous thing for the federal government to
concern itself with: Users who’re particularly concerned about
their online privacy will either take security precautions on their
own or simply avoid the net altogether.
