First the National Security Agency, and now the While House have been caught illegally tracking U.S. citizens' and others' online movements - but the latest revelations have little to do with domestic spying under the guise of national security measures, and more to do with the web sites of the NSA and White house placing cookie, apparently inadvertently, on the hard drives of those who visit them. Red Herring writes that Richard M. Smith, a software security specialist, noticed that the NSA was leaving cookies around, contrary to an Office of Management and Budget ban on the use of such technology.
Since then, he and the Associated Press have been visiting government sites; lo and behold, visits to WhiteHouse.gov resulted in uploaded cookies. The White House has disavowed any knowledge or ill intent and promised to investigate.
Recent Coverage: The Cookie Imbroglio
- Kanoodle to Pay Publishers for Cookie Delivery
- One-Third of Web Users Run Cookie-Deleting Anti-Virus Software
- Nielsen Accounts for Cookie Deletion in Visitor Count
- Tacoda CEO: Publishers Must Confront Intractable Cookie Problem
- eMarketer: Fear Not the Cookie Monster
- Jupiter: Wealthy, Web-Experienced Users Delete Cookies Most
- Making Cookies Digestible for Users
- WebTrends: Despite Net Ad Boom, Confidence in Web Metrics Shaky
- Burst Cookie Survey: Consumers 'Don't Understand, Say Maybe Useful, But Some Delete Anyhow'
- Study: Quadruple the Number of Visitors Rejecting Third-Party Cookies
- Safecount Launched to Save Cookies, Back Safe Measurement
- Study: 27 Percent Weekly Clearing Cookies
- InsightExpress: Rumors of Cookie Demise Still Greatly Exaggerated
- Cookie Death Small Potatoes, More Product of Spyware Measures
- Atlas: Cookie Deletion Figures Exaggerated Wildly by Self-Reported Data
- Macromedia CTO: Yeah, Flash Makes for Good Cookie Replacements
- Cookie Death Causes Search for Successor
- Cookie Death Partly Due to 'Anti-Spyware' Tools
- Tacoda Tech Replaces Deleted Cookies
- Many Delete Cookies, Invalidate Ad Measurements
- House Removes Threat to Cookies in Spyware Bill
