Cookies endangered by new legislation
In trying to kill spyware, the authors drafted a bill with language that questions the legality of using any code to capture and store user information, including most first- and third-party cookies employed in online advertising. Basically, the bill makes little distinction between bad cookies (such as spyware-type programs) and good cookies (such as ad-server code and legitimate adware).Everyone working in online advertising, publishing, and e-commerce should educate himself about this bill and the issues underlying it. The bill may not go anywhere. Passing a House committee in a year when the entire country is focused on a presidential election and a war doesn't mean it's about to become law. Yet the very fact that using an important, general-interest technology like cookies can be put at risk so easily should give pause.
Reflect on how much you rely on that technology, how important it is to the industry, and how much we stand to lose if it disappears. Ad serving and ad measurement as we know them today would be placed in serious jeopardy. We don't need this bump in the road just as we're making real headway and real profits.
HR 2929 is more than a public policy issue. It's a marketplace issue, too. Many companies that develop and maintain key elements of our infrastructure, from browsers to virus protection and firewalls, deploy applications that can't differentiate between good and bad cookies. These applications have the potential to erode our ability to rely on an important, useful, and ultimately consumer-friendly technology that's core to what we do. Let's not wait until it's too late to understand the issues and do something about them.
posted by Jen @ 2:04 PM
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