OBrother

clipped from www.democraticmedia.org Of course, Google/YouTube’s cookie placed via a White House visit sets the stage for the company to further track and analyze citizens/ users.  Given YouTube’s ever-growing expansion as a commercial video advertising service, its ability to harness the White House data cookie will undoubtedly prove useful for the company. The revised White House privacy policy does offer users a way to view the videos “without the use of persistent cookies” through the extra step of clicking the “link to download the video file… provided just below the video.” But we think opt-out is the incorrect approach. The Obama White House should set the standard for protecting privacy in the digital era.  They should maintain the prohibition on persistent tracking cookies.  Nor should they permit any commercial operator, including Google’s YouTube, to engage in federally-sanctioned data collection.