YouTube Limits Cookie Tracking on White House Website

Jan 23, 2009 by John Messina weblog
White House Website

(PhysOrg.com) -- With the launch of President Obama's White House website, three days ago, there has been extensive use of YouTube videos on the site. As we all know Google now owns YouTube and tracks every visitor that lands on the YouTube website or plays a YouTube video. The same did hold true for anyone visiting the White House website, until now.

President's Obama's Web Team went quickly to work to fix this issue and limit YouTube's ability to track every visitor to the White House website. By Thursday evening the White House website replace the YouTube video player with an image of their own player.

With this fix, YouTube can now only track White House website visitors if they click "play" on the embedded YouTube play button. Any visitor that does not watch any videos will not be tracked.

This is only meant as a short term solution. Visitors, who do click the play button on the YouTube video player, will be tracked as they navigate the White House website. There is really no good reason for Google to track White House website visitors who choose to watch a video that was produced by the White House staff and paid for by the taxpayers.

With the White House website only three days old, the Obama administration has already shown us that they take internet privacy very seriously. In the coming months we will see how seriously internet privacy is taken by Obama's administration.

© 2009 PhysOrg.com

Explore further: Review: Google music plan solid, serendipitous

add to favorites email to friend print save as pdf

Related Stories

Files posted online to 'print' working handgun

May 06, 2013

Computer files to create a handgun almost entirely from parts made with a 3D printer went online Monday, alarming gun control advocates after it was successfully test-fired by its inventor.

UK: Guardian newspaper's Twitter feeds hacked

Apr 29, 2013

The Guardian newspaper said Monday that its Twitter accounts have been hacked, and it cited a claim of responsibility from the group calling itself the Syrian Electronic Army.

Study finds minorities pay more for housing than whites

Apr 23, 2013

(Phys.org) —Black and Hispanic homebuyers paid about 3.5 percent more for comparable homes in four metropolitan U.S. markets than white buyers did, according to a Duke University-led analysis of more than 2 million home ...

Hackers cause stir with 'Obama injured' AP tweet

Apr 23, 2013

Hackers spooked markets Tuesday after breaking into the Associated Press's Twitter account and falsely reporting President Barack Obama had been injured after two blasts at the White House.

Recommended for you

Review: Google music plan solid, serendipitous

6 hours ago

Google's new music service offers a lot of eye candy to go with the tunes. The song selection of around 18 million tracks is comparable to popular services such as Spotify and Rhapsody, and a myriad of playlists ...

Facebook joins Web freedom group

May 22, 2013

Facebook on Wednesday became a full member of the Global Network Initiative, a non-governmental organization promoting Internet freedom and privacy rights.

Big Data—for better or worse

May 22, 2013

A full 90% of all the data in the world has been generated over the last two years. The internet companies are awash with data that can be grouped and utilised. Is this a good thing?

Risky behaviour starts young on social media: survey

May 22, 2013

Australian children are accessing social media websites at an increasingly younger age, a new survey suggests, with one in five "tweens" admitting they have chatted to someone online they do not know.

User comments : 0

More news stories

Google Drive sports new view and scan enhancements

(Phys.org) —Google Drive has a new look and functions. The makeover in Google Drive features scanning and interface enhancements that put the user into "card" mode. The enhancements make it easy for the ...

Solar Kettle allows for boiling water off the grid

(Phys.org) —A company called Contemporary Energy has unveiled a new device it calls the Solar Kettle. It looks very much like a normal coffee thermos, but has flaps on one side that open to allow for collecting ...

Controlling mood through the motions of mitochondria

(Medical Xpress)—Regulating the distribution of power in neurons is done by a system that makes the national electric grid look simple by comparison. Each neuron has several thousand mitochondria confined ...