The second YouTube video for IST618, "Survey of Telecommunications and Information Policy", Privacy and Security.
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The video is a FOX news program (Miller, 2009) discussing the US government's plan to change its policy to allow federal websites to track user behaviors to “bring the federal government into the 21st century” (Kundra & Fitzpatrick, 2009b).
Since 2000, the establishment of Memorandum M-00-13 prohibited the use of any tracking objects on federal websites and the ban was enacted for privacy protection. However, the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) decided to change the policy “to enhance citizen participation in government” (Kundra & Fitzpatrick, 2009a). The Obama administration wanted to know the public better by tracking their visits to government websites.
According to security expert Robert Siciliano, cookie’s closest cousin was spy ware, and a serious concern was that now the government enabled cookies on their websites, “will the cookies merge to spy ware and maliciously tracks everything we do?”
The video also included a short clip of President Obama supporting the act that requesting “fishy” information from supporters on health reform.
Another interviewer, Judge Andrew Napolitano compared the policy change to former President Nixon’s surveillance on war protesters. The Supreme Court said Nixon’s surveillance was “unconstitutional” and the Privacy Act was enacted in 1974 after Nixon left the office. The Privacy Act prohibited the government to gather and store information of people who disagreed with the President. The judge also mentioned that he was against the USA PATRIOT ACT which gave the government rights to gather and search telephone, e-mail, medical and other information within the United States(Anonymous, n.d).
However, even if the government isn’t tracking user behavior, information is still tracked by companies like Google (Hsu & Kang, 2009). What I concern most is how the companies react to the government’s requirement of offering user sensitive data. Google has long been famous for its slogan “Don’t be evil.” But Google is still tracking YouTube viewing data on WhiteHouse.gov while the company claims that they don’t store it anywhere (Kafka, 2009). The question is, if Google does not store such information, then why flash code of YouTube video still sends the information to Google? Back in 2006, when US Department of Justice demanded the major search engine companies for a random list of one million web addresses with no user navigation information, Yahoo! and MSN both complied and Google refused. Since the user information on Internet has increased tremendously and the government now “wants a piece” of information of public online behavior. What if the government requires more user-specific data from the data aggregate companies and the companies comply?
References:
Anonymous. (n.d.) USA Patriot Act. Electronic Privacy Information Center. Retrieved from: http://epic.org/privacy/terrorism/usapatriot/
Hsu, S.S., & Kang, C. U.S. (2009, August 11). Web-tracking plan stirs privacy fears. The Washington Post. Retrieved from: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article /2009/08/10/AR2009081002743.html
Kafka, P. (2009, June 22). Google’s YouTube White House privacy policy: “Trust us”. All Things Digital. Retrieved from: http://mediamemo.allthingsd.com/20090622/googles- youtube-white-house-policy-trust-us/
Kundra, V., & Fitzpatrick, M. (2009a, July 24). Federal websites: Cookie policy. White House. Retrieved from: http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/Federal-Websites-Cookie-Policy/
Kundra, V., & Fitzpatrick, M. (2009b, August 11). On cookies. White House. Retrieved from: http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/On-Cookies
Miller, J.R. (2009, August 12). Feds consider adding 'cookies' to web sites; Will privacy crumble? Fox News. Retrieved from: http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2009/08/12/feds-consider-adding-cookies-web-sites-privacy-crumble/
Sullivan, D. (2006, January 19) Bush administration demands search data; Google says No; AOL, MSN & Yahoo said yes. Search Engine Watch. Retrieved from: http://blog.searchenginewatch.com/060119-060352
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