cannabisnews.com: Drug Cookies Drug Cookies Posted by FoM on June 22, 2000 at 21:40:48 PT By Daryl Lindsey Source: Salon Magazine Why was the White House drug office monitoring your computer behavior?The White House drug office can't seem to keep itself out of trouble these days. In the latest scandal to befall the beleaguered Office of National Drug Control Policy, whose dubious ties with television screenwriters have been documented on this site's Web pages, the agency was forced to admit earlier this week that it allowed an Internet data mining operation to collect information from visitors to its youth-oriented anti-drug site FreeVibe. http://www.freevibe.com/index.shtmlhttp://salon.com/news/feature/2000/01/13/drugs/New York Internet advertising agency DoubleClick supplied ONDCP with the controversial cookie technology the agency used to data mine -- a term used to describe the gathering of personal or anonymous information about Internet users in order to track their demographics and Web page dietary habits. The administration seemed blindsided by the news, and even Washington privacy advocates suggested that it was probably a case of the left hand not knowing what the right hand was doing. In a press briefing Wednesday, Clinton voicebox Joe Lockhart took great pains to distance his boss from the latest ONDCP fiasco, informing reporters that the president hadn't heard anything about it until that day. Lockhart also said the White House ordered the ONDCP to "take all steps necessary to halt these practices now" and to order DoubleClick and other contractors to destroy any data that had been compiled using the cookie technology that had been used on the site. But calls from reporters and an upbraiding by the president had the ONDCP on the defensive, too. ONDCP senior policy analyst Don Maple told Salon that the "pixel tracking" cookie was used because Ogilvy & Mather, the national firm that does the principal planning and placement of the ONDCP's anti-drug campaign, requested better tracking of click-throughs on ONDCP banner ads. Presumably, Ogilvy & Mather wanted to determine the effectiveness of ONDCP's targeted ad placement on other Internet sites. Maple stated firmly that the ONDCP has not used the software to track personal data about the users; the cookies anonymously tracked users to the ONDCP's Web site and followed them anonymously as they traveled through its pages. "We felt the privacy safeguards were complete," he said. The gaffe is embarrassing for the White House for two reasons. First, two years ago and with great fanfare, President Clinton supported efforts to pass a law in April 1998 that would protect children from data mining by commercial Internet companies. The Children's Online Privacy Protection Act does not apply to government sites, but some of the very people who helped pass that legislation think it's hypocritical for the government to use software technology that is often associated with surreptitious collection of personal data from Internet users, even if it is only tracking users anonymously. Maple said the ONDCP was under orders to comply with COPPA, and that he believes the technology partnership with DoubleClick was not a violation. "The sheer irresponsibility of it and the ethical position they put themselves in was quite shocking," says Andrew Shen, a policy analyst at the Electronic Privacy Information Center, an Internet privacy rights organization in Washington. http://www.epic.org/Second, DoubleClick's plans to merge the data it collects from Internet users with other databases so outraged regulators that the Federal Trade Commission launched an investigation into the company. It was exactly the sort of predatory practice the Clinton administration was trying to protect children from when it pushed the privacy bill in 1998. "That's not a very good company to outsource to if you're collecting information and trying to do it in a responsible manner," said Shen. The ONDCP's data mining techniques don't violate COPPA, since that law only applies to commercial Web sites, but Center for Media Education president Kathryn Montgomery, who lobbied for passage of the youth data mining law and "badgered" the Clinton administration into supporting it, says that shouldn't matter. "The principles should be applied everywhere," she says. "The whole idea that there's this surreptitious monitoring and marketing going on is not ethical in my opinion, even though it's becoming very common. They're doing it with young people, with children. I think it was unethical and inappropriate." "I think they are often very willing to embrace the practices of the commercial industry," Montgomery says, "believing that that's the latest thing and the appropriate thing to be doing." Says the ONDCP's Maple: "What it looked like when we were briefed on this months ago was that it was the standard business practice employed by virtually everybody." But sometimes, the latest, greatest technology can lead to disaster, as even Maple now admits. "It looks different today than it did months ago," Maple concedes. "It makes a big difference when you see and hear the reaction by the White House -- not for the technical specifics of what we understood we were doing, but to the perception of many to any form of this tracker technology." Maple also said the organization had underestimated the sensitivity of President Clinton to tracking technologies. "We underestimated their sensitivity to the use of any form of tracking devices with respect to privacy. Having been apprised, we immediately agreed to cease and stop using them. It doesn't have any major effect on the campaign," he said. Direct Link To Article:http://salon.com/news/feature/2000/06/23/ondcp/index.htmlBy Daryl LindseyAbout the Writer:Daryl Lindsey is associate editor of Salon News. Sound OffSend us a Letter to the Editorhttp://www.salon.com/about/letters/index.htmlsalon.com | June 23, 2000Copyright © 2000 Salon.comRelated Articles:Drug Office Ends Tracking of Web Users http://cannabisnews.com/news/thread6138.shtmlAnti-Drug Web Site Tracks Visitorshttp://cannabisnews.com/news/thread6131.shtmlWhite House Drug Office Tracks Computer Visitorshttp://cannabisnews.com/news/thread6117.shtml Home Comment Email Register Recent Comments Help Comment #4 posted by FoM on June 23, 2000 at 10:26:38 PT White House Issues Net Privacy Directive White House Issues Net Privacy DirectiveSalon Magazinehttp://salon.com/Associated Press June 23, 2000 | A day after the White House ordered its drug policy office to stop tracking Web users through anti-drug advertising, the Clinton administration issued strict new rules regulating federal use of the Internet technology, which can surreptitiously collect personal information. Click to read the complete article.http://salon.com/tech/wire/2000/06/23/net_privacy/index.htmlCookiegate Alarms Watchdogs Wired News Report http://www.wired.com/3:30 p.m. Jun. 22, 2000 PDT WASHINGTON -- Privacy groups went on the offensive Thursday, calling on Congress to investigate the Clinton administration's use of cookies as part of its anti-illegal drug campaign. The request comes a day after the White House admitted it may have violated federal privacy guidelines by tracking users who searched for drug-related information online. Click to read the complete article.Cookiegate Alarms Watchdogs http://www.wired.com/news/politics/0,1283,37173,00.html [ Post Comment ] Comment #3 posted by kaptinemo on June 23, 2000 at 04:59:31 PT: Business as usual. "I think they are often very willing to embrace the practices of the commercial industry," Montgomery says, "believing that that's the latest thing and the appropriatething to be doing." There's a lot in this sentence. And it betrays an enormous amount of the inner workings of the mindset of the ONDCP.We all know the DrugWar is a racket. A 'busi-ness' as the Wise Guys with Sicilian surnames on my block used to say. We know how lucrative this has proven to be for the cops; they get to keep almost everything that they steal in forfeitures, and literally plan their operations around how much they expect to gain from their theft. They even admit it in their guidelines; if it is below a certain cash value, they don't bother. (So, in their eyes, even though a 'crime' is being committed, if it is not 'profitable enough' to prosecute the law, they won't? Very interesting, because it stands their moral posturing on its' head; they loudly bray that no price is too great to protect children from the scourge of drugs - yet they balk when their profit margin dips below a certain percentage... making this an entirely *mercantile* rather than a public safety issue. Bloody f*****g hypocrites.)Needless to say, that orientation is widespread. It fuels every action the Drugwarriors do. But none of the local level LEOs came up with that directive; all that came from the Federal level. By example. For the past 30 years, ever since RICO and forfeiture bagan to be applied to the DrugWar, the entire focus has shifted from being a rather straightforward government operation... to being a covert commercial one. Just as the military/ industrial complex fed off of Reds-under-the-beds hysteria and literally fueled an entire nation's economy, the prison/ industrial complex seeks to do the same. Again, we all know this.But the above article makes it clear that the ONDCP is using a commercial, not a governmental model, to derive its orientation for operating it's DrugWar. That puts it on par with any corporation. Business. Not public service, but business. The problem is, this business is destroying this country. And the 'CEOs' like McCaffrey are of the opinion, (to paraphrase a CEO of General Motors) that what's good for the Drugwarriors is good for America, so they will not relent.November is coming, people. Time to give these bums their walking papers and pink slips. [ Post Comment ] Comment #2 posted by dddd on June 23, 2000 at 00:36:15 PT gosh The reaction from the government is one of the biggest,fresh,steaming piles of crap we've seen since the last one. I'm afraid I dont buy the old,"we had no idea",explanation...what a crock.One of the main problems is,there is NO way to check on any of the slimy scoundrels at the ondcp.They are accountable to no one,who is not in the clandestine loop of official scumbags....dddd [ Post Comment ] Comment #1 posted by dankhank on June 22, 2000 at 22:32:43 PT: Delete your cookies regularly ... It is easy and wise to regularly delete all your cookies.Windows98 has a special "cookies" file.Use explorer to get into cookies,select all and delete.It may tell you that the .dat file is in use, OK, then delete will commence.I try to do it daily. Also in IE tools/Internet Options you can clear history and temp files.A better way to do it is to find BCWIPE, a free utility, or any other wiping program that not only deletes, which is not really a delete if you know what I mean, but actually wipes the area of the stored files to scramble it, and even wipes the swap file area.Also, in Tools/Internet Tools/Security/Custom Level find the area of "cookies" and set up as you want, to get cookies, not get cookies, store cookies, get but not store cookies, whatever you want.As always ... Peace ... and fight the good fight ... HEMP n STUFF [ Post Comment ] Post Comment Name: Optional Password: E-Mail: Subject: Comment: [Please refrain from using profanity in your message] Link URL: Link Title: