FCC Meets To Investigate Cookie Abuse

PreacherTom writes to tell us BusinessWeek is reporting that the FCC and the Center for Digital Democracy plan to meet in order to discuss abuses with regard to cookies. From the article: "Online advertisers have a sweet tooth for cookies. Not the kind you bake, but the digital kind — those tiny files that embed themselves on a PC and keep tabs on what Web sites are visited on which machines. But cookies could have a bad aftertaste for consumers. Privacy advocates say the files are being force fed in large quantities to computer users, and they're demanding that the government put some advertisers on a diet."

Comments

Alright, I'll Cut Back!

[Anonymous Coward]

FCC Meets to Investigate Cookie Abuse

Jeez, lay off me, ok? My doctor's been bustin' my balls about it, the last thing I need is the government on my back.

I'm sorry, I'm sorry! But when you leave a box of those girl scout confections next to me, what do you think I'm going to do? They're gone after a few lines of coding and I don't even remember eating them!

*breaks down sobbing

I'm a sick man! I need help! Someone just check me into the Betty Crocker clinic already!

Suggested tag: thinkofthecookies

FCC Meets to Investigate Cookie Abuse

[GillBates0]

Thousands of children arrested for crumbling cookies and drowning them in milk.

When contacted for comment on this...

[spiritraveller]

Cookie Monster replied, "Me not guilty. Cookie goooooooooooood!"

Re:When contacted for comment on this...

[scottschiller]

Another cookie article, and yet more cooking/baking analogies. Someone should write a cookie monster Greasemonkey script which brings up that particular character ("And now, me eat cookie! Owmwowmowmwowmowmwmowm...."), before setting document.cookie to null.

Many sites stuff advertising and tracking-related data in there alongside your login/auth information in cookies, so it seems you can't win if you need to browse with credentials etc. Blocking 3rd-party cookies is probably the safest bet against ads and so on at this point though, without disrupting cookies required just to browse/authenticate.

Are you kidding?

[spencerogden]

Is this really an area we need more laws about? The dangers of cookies have been overblown for a long time. Not to mention that fact that all browsers give the user more than adequate control over their cookies.

If this is the best thing the FCC can find to waste their time on, then they have become worthless.

Re:Are you kidding?

[neoform]

Headline should have read:

"FCC Meets to Over-Assert Itself Once Again"

The summary is an understatement.

[jZnat]

Try browsing with cookies on an "ask me every time" sort of basis. Even the most unlikely websites will demand a cookie. What ever happened to sane usage of cookies where they'd only be set if you did something on the site that initiated a cookie transfer (e.g. logging in, starting a shopping cart, storing your preferences)?

Re:The summary is an understatement.

[TodMinuit]

What ever happened to sane usage of cookies where they'd only be set if you did something on the site that initiated a cookie transfer (e.g. logging in, starting a shopping cart, storing your preferences)?

Oh man, remember those good old days? Before every site was covered in AdSense. When MySpace was the glimmer in some nerds eye. Before every moron lip-synced horrible songs on YouTube. When email was used for communication. When people actually used correct English. When Pluto was still a planet.

I remember!!! Flobble-de-flee!

Oh criminy

[A nonymous Coward]

Just disable cookies in the browser by default. Or make them session cookies, that's a good enough second best.

What's the government supposed to do next, make it illegal for anyone to download a virus?

Honestly, some people won't be satisfied until the government publishes a 500 page manual on how to wipe your ass and makes it illegal to do it in any other way.

Re:Oh criminy

[ajs]

No, you're hyperbolizing. Some people (myself included) won't be happy until the government sets limits on how personal information can be used by corporations. I don't like the fact, for example, that my mother's phone company shares personal information with her Internet provider who then buys information derived from cookies to develop a package that allows telemarketers to target her based on what Web sites she uses. This is not what the Internet is there for, and I personally want a stop put to it. Limiting abuse of cookies (especially cross-site hand-offs that are used specifically to track broad activity across disconnected sites) would be a good first step, and one that should have happened years ago when certain companies which NDAs prevent me from naming (not related to my current company, thankfully) started the practice.

Re:Oh criminy

[kenj0418]

Honestly, some people won't be satisfied until the government publishes a 500 page manual on how to wipe your ass and makes it illegal to do it in any other way.

I wouldn't mind if the government gave me a 500 page manual for wiping my ass. As long as the pages were soft - that is.

More laws != good laws

[daeg]

Laws don't always correct things. This isn't something you can legislate. The sheer number of exceptions would make this law more complicated than anyone could follow or enforce.

Don't like cookies? Don't visit the sites that use them.

Re:More laws != good laws

[KokorHekkus]

Sweden has had a law mandating full disclosure of how cookies are used since 2003. In practice this means there's a small notification to a static page on how they use cookies. So it's not exactly an undue burden for a website. Having a lot of exceptions would make this complicated? Then don't have any... we don't in Sweden. Nothing has crumbled and died here yet.

International

[toetagger1]

So this, like many other toppics like this, raises the question:
The FCC only has so much juresdiction. Would this apply to webpages that are hosted in the US? How about webpages that are being viewed in the US? Or what if they are hosted and vewed outside the US, but go through some wire in the US (or even worse, some satelite above the US...)
Of course, you could always regulate businesses and the way they do business in the US, but that shouldn't really be the FCCs responsibility. Not to mention that a business on the Net isn't just in the "US", especially if it sells ideas, information, or services, which are non-physical things that don't always cross borders and such.
It'll be interesting how this will play out in the next couple of years.

cookie problem

[ajs318]

It's up to users to fight back. I have configured Firefox to ask me about cookies every time one is offered. If I see the dreaded __utma or RMID, I will block all cookies from that site. Others I will accept for the session only. I don't mind the odd PHPSESSID (even had one of them from a site pretending to be .asp once -- wonder if that was done for legacy compatibility reasons [keep the old filename even after upgrading to a better server platform] or by some smart IT bods getting paid to develop a site for a Microsoft server, then hosting it on a proper one and pocketing the money?)

If you're smart, you won't be tracked by cookies. But I've seen scary stackloads of cookies on machines running Microsoft crap. Come to think of it, even Firefox accepts all cookies by default.

Making browsers default to a safer cookie setting (disabled, or session-only) would be a step in the right direction, and so would simply outlawing data-mining (not that I expect anyone would take any notice of such a ban); but ultimately, it's still no substitute for users having some smarts.

I hate cookies

[MeanderingMind]

I've browsed the internet with my ever changing browser of choice set to ask me about any and all cookies for years now. The number of cookies per site has been very steadily and rapidly increasing since their conception.

I hate it.

Back when they first appeared, they were there to help us maintain our logins through the website, not lose our shipping carts etc. It wasn't bad, it made sense. I was willing to let websites store my username and password so that I didn't have to keep logging back in constantly.

Honestly, I don't even see why we have cookies anymore. There should be far better ways to maintain a persistant login by now. Ways which don't threaten our privacy, or provide a medium for the same bastards that invented pop-ups and pop-unders to destroy common decency.

The first time I visit any website I am bombarded by cookies. This isn't just one cookie, this is as many as seven from a single page. Why in the name of Linux Torvalds do these sites need seven cookies to function? Clicking the next page bombards me again, and will keep bombarding me until I get through all 255 or more ad3.adserve.cookies.net like services. Only then can I finally visit the website in peace, until next month when a new advertiser joins the loop.

So now my cookie accept/block list is the size of New York's phone book. Heaven forbid in that barrage of cookies there was actually an important one. With all the obscure names they're given it's impossible to tell until you can't maintain your login. Now I get to play the age old 'Find the needle in the haystack' game, new millenium version.

This is beyond sanity. I don't know if the FCC has the right or the ability to do something about this, but something should be done. I don't have any idea what. Boycotting pages with cookies means 99.9% of the internet is off limits.