White House Cookies Stir Controversy

To bring more communication and transparency to the White House, a new Whitehouse.gov site was rolled out precisely at the stroke of noon on Inauguration Day. Within hours, there was already controversy.

The new White House Website makes use of cookies from WebTrends and from YouTube Inc. The concern centers on whether the cookies are capable of tracking an objectionable amount of private information about visitors to the site.

Much of this is not even news, as WebTrends had been in use on the White House Website for several years, though the Youtube cookies are new.

The information tracked by the cookies is as follows:

The White House, and WebTrends, the vendor, know the referring URLs that bring users to the WhiteHouse.gov site. They know the ID of any WebTrends cookie already installed on the visitor's system; the language the browser is set to; the time since the last visit; the current time; and whether Java, Flash, or Silverlight is installed.

YouTube, or, more broadly, Google (Nasdaq: GOOG), knows how many times YouTube videos are viewed by people via the White House Website. None of this data is tied to an individual. None of the data reveals that I visited Whitehouse.gov on Inauguration Day.

I think the challenge comes down to what is public and what is private. Let’s take an example: Say I am a rabid supporter of U.S. statehood for Quebec.

If I make a phone call from my house or cellphone to the offices of "Quebec the 51st State," that is clearly private information. The police, or any other government agency, would need a court order to learn that I made the call -- or that I called the offices of Internet Evolution just before phoning the Quebec campaign.

If I participate in a rally supporting Quebec statehood that is held on the streets of D.C., then my participation can be freely observed. It can be recorded, it can be taped -- there is nothing private about my actions. It may be seen via any number of cameras that now watch the streets in most major cities that I left Restaurant X and walked to the Quebec statehood rally.

The most private item that WebTrends could report to the White House is the summary data of how many people visited a site, say the Website for Restaurant X, immediately before visiting Whitehouse.gov. Is that data even private? Is that data like my sample phone call?

I, for one, am pleased to see the government using WebTrends (again, a decision that predates the current administration). It means they are buying an affordable software solution instead of spending my taxpayer dollars building unnecessary software. Plus, it means they are looking to track the success or value of their work.

If they build a new section on the Website that they think will provide a public service, they can then use the analytics from WebTrends to discover if many people or few people visit. If few people visit, then they can spend their limited dollars and staff time on other projects. These metrics help provide accountability!

I am quite biased when it comes to Web analytics. I implemented a Web analytics tool (a WebTrends competitor) back in 1999, and today that site represents the longest continually running implementation of Web analytics on the Internet. I have seen the value it brings.

Eating too many Girl Scout cookies is bad. But there is a time and a place to have a few. Likewise, computer cookies can be bad -- but at the same time, there are many times when using them provides great value.