Developing a Taste for Cookies
It's looking like the decade-old cookie ban for federal websites is about to be rescinded. Dave Wennergren, deputy chief information officer at the Defense Department, <a href=http://www.nextgov.com/nextgov/ng_20100617_5266.php>talked with Nextgov</a> on Wednesday evening about the department's consideration of giving visitors to its websites the option of choosing to have cookies placed on their systems. That way the department could push content to users based on what they read and where they go on the sites -- not much different than what commercial sites do now.
It's looking like the decade-old cookie ban for federal websites is about to be rescinded. Dave Wennergren, deputy chief information officer at the Defense Department, talked with Nextgov on Wednesday evening about the department's consideration of giving visitors to its websites the option of choosing to have cookies placed on their systems. That way the department could push content to users based on what they read and where they go on the sites -- not much different than what commercial sites do now.
But most private-sector websites follow an opt-out policy when it comes to cookies, meaning the average users has no idea that their movements and searches are being tracked. That brings up this question: How many visitors to government websites will choose to have federal cookies on their computers?