The Energy Department's Computer Incident
Advisory Capability (CIAC) recently issued a report
on cookie technology and its use on the web. They
deemed the general use as being ok, but did stress
concern over the use of persistent cookies to target
users, "Cookies are being used for tracking people's
browsing habits, and that makes a lot of people
really uncomfortable." The report also indicated that
as long as companies maintain a good sense of
ethics, inherently bad uses of cookies could be
prevented. People can also have good control of the
cookies stored on their system, either by
manipulating their cookie files or using third party
software.
The report stressed that there's a sense of paranoia
involved with cookies, cookies cannot harm your
computer or pass on private information such as an
email address without the user's intervention in the
first place. Paranoia has recently been sparked by
one rumour involving AOL's new software, it claimed
that AOL were planning to use cookies to obtain
private information from users hard drives. Such
hoaxes have not helped the reputation of cookies.
Cookies have attracted a lot of attention over recent
months, the first batch of cookies were originally
cooked up as simple mechanism to help make it
easier for users to access their favourite sites by
storing passwords, a process previously impossible
due to the stateless nature of HTTP.
For more information see the report "Government
OKs Net cookies" from news.com.
And "Cookie Worries Are Unfounded, U.S.
Government Says" by techweb.