The Office of Management and Budget is seeking public comments on the use of Web tracking techniques on federal government websites. Government agencies are currently prohibited from using persistent identifiers, such as cookies, except when there is a compelling need. EPIC, in comments to the President’s Office of Science & Technology, said that the government…
Category: Online
Aussie net filtering trial deemed a success
Although not without controversy, the initial testing of the Australian government’s Internet filtering system has gone off with few problems according to reports from some of the participating ISPs. Five of the nine ISPs testing the government’s filtering system reported few problems during testing, even though only 15 customers participated at one and a couple…
Twitter breach revives security issues with cloud computing
Security and privacy issues over cloud computing are not very different from those surrounding any sort of IT outsourcing and need to be treated that way, security managers and analysts say in the wake of breaches involving Twitter and Google Apps. The incident has resurfaced many familiar concerns relating to cloud computing and is raising…
Legal restrictions won’t ensure privacy online
In response to Jonathan Zittrain’s op-ed, “Lost in the Cloud,” Ryan Radia, Information Policy Analyst at Competitive Enterprise Institute, writes to the NY Times: […] Mr. Zittrain proposes a “fair practices law” that would require companies to release personal data back to users upon request. Such a rule may sound workable, but purging specific data…