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September 19, 2007
Symantec CEO Warns EU of Peeping Tom Cookie Menace - Evidently Still Using IE 3
O.k. O.k. So, the past few days maybe I've been sounding sort of strident. I'll admit it. I've been irritable about social networking sites, touchy about government secrecy, hard on poor Google. So maybe I'm noticing this because I'm trying to find a way to right boat a little ... restore a sense of balance ... take a little of the edge off:
Symantec CEO Urges Cookie Notification:
"I don't have an issue with people having cookies on their machine as long as I've been told one just got planted there," Thompson said. "I think there is an opt-in option here that should be available to everyone."
He questioned whether there is a "difference between a peeping Tom in the physical world and a cookie prying into my private affairs in the digital world."
...
He would not say if he thought the European Commission should flex its muscles and require user permission for cookies, merely saying "if the EU felt that was a problem, they might want to insert themselves here."
O.k. Right off the bat:
(Click for a bigger version of Firefox's privacy panel)
That's the Firefox privacy panel, which lets you deny all cookies, pick which cookies can or can't be set in your browser, decide how long they persist (on a case-by-case basis), or even selectively remove cookies.
"Oh, sure," say the doubters ... "FIREFOX. That's the elite uber-nerd browser! This cookie-blocking technology is light years ahead of the competition!"
Er ...
(Click for a bigger version of IE 6's privacy panel)
That'd be Internet Explorer's cookie management panel.
I think we've got this one covered without involving the whole continent of Europe.
(Although it'd kill nobody to make mention of site-specific cookies and their handling in privacy policies.)
Posted by mhall at 7:27 PM | Add Comment
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