Don't Hand Me No Cookies. EPIC, EFF & others are
Ray Van Eng (04/18/97)
A privacy advocacy group has petitioned to the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) to give consumers control over cookies or electronic tags that web sites often secretly assigned to web surfers to collect information about their web surfing habits. The proposal calls for the IETF to make it as a standard protocol for browser makers like Netscape and Microsoft to reject all cookies as a default setting with the option of allowing the users to selectively accept the ones that they like to have so they may still enjoy the convenience of letting cookies supply passwords to protected areas or allowing online merchants to track their shopping preferences so as to target them more effectively in future visits. Presently, both the Microsoft's Internet Explorer and Netscape's Navigator provide a way for knowledgeable surfers to turn off cookies. But some popular sites such as the ESPN, HotWired, Pathfinder etc. would hand you multiple cookies before you would be admitted to their content areas. It is pure annoyance to have to cancel the seemingly endless parade of dialog boxes every time you come by one of these sites. If left undisturbed, some cookies can live on your hard disks for years feeding information back to the issuer or any other web site operator who might decided to tag along for the ride. Among the group who signed the proposal to IETF are the Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC), the Electronic Frontier Foundation, Computer Professionals for Social Responsibility, the Consumer Project on Technology, and the Center for Media Education. At the other camp are proponents of cookie technology. They include advertising agencies, web site owners and large corporations who purchase banner ads. They argue that cookies are critical for the success of online advertising and these electronic identifiers would be rendered useless if the default setting proposal got accepted by the IETF and passed into law. It would mean a serious loss of revenue for web site operators and marketers who would have no way of gathering meaningful data for their clients. Hardest hit would be those online publishers who are relying on advertising to continue to provide free content to their readers. Furthermore, Internet users would be under-served because there would be a lack of understanding between the producers of goods and services and the consumers. It will be interesting to watch the outcome of this controversy, but privacy concerns are certainly on the rise all over the Internet. Recently, under pressure from EPIC and senators from seven states, the U.S. Social Security Administration has decided to take down a section of their web site that allowed federal pensioners and other people with personal knowledge about them to check up their records over the Internet. These databases contain information such as accrued benefits, past earnings and salary figures about individuals that can date back 30 years or even longer. Just this week, Senator Dianne Feinstein (D-California) and Senator Charles Grassley (R-Iowa) introduced the Personal Information Privacy Act which proposes that anyone found guilt of buying or selling someone's Social Security Number without that individual's written consent can be fined for up to $50,000. In her speech on the Senate floor, Feinstein said, "I
found that my own Social Security number was accessible to users on the
Internet. My staff retrieved it in less than three minutes." |
© Copyright Ray Van Eng 1997 - 1999. All Rights Reserved.
