At the Collaboration Project's meeting on January 8 2009, the subject was raised of how cookies can be used in federal web space. Because the memorandum that currently governs the use of cookies is fairly restrictive, the group was challenged to find affirmative uses for cookies that make the case for a less restrictive policy. These are the outputs of this meeting.

While we have done our best to compile these notes, we welcome and encourage others who were at the meeting to share their own thoughts in the comments below. To edit this page, please register and log-in. If you have any questions, please call Dan Munz at 202-204-3664.

Benefits of Cookies

Tailored Content

People are more inclined to care about content that is tailored to their locality (e.g. polling place locations) or personal situation.
Research shows that tailored messages (e.g. regarding public health) produce more likelihood of positive changes in behavior than generic messages.
A persistent cookie allows a web manager to know how many unique vs repeat visitors come to the website. Without that, everyone looks like a unique visitor. You design a site differently, and offer different things, if you have many repeat visitors vs. all new visitors.
To measure customer satisfaction, a site often randomly pops up a survey asking for input. With a persistent cookie, you can make sure you are not repeatedly serving up surveys (or other application) to your repeat visitors. Without a cookie, there is no way to do this.

Third Parties

Google Maps and other geographical services store cookies; government must not be barred from using those.

Efficiency/Quality of Service

People like to leave a website "the way they found it."
Customizing site navigation can help people find the right content and improve their ability to engage with government web content.
Cookies enable language tracking so that non-English-speakers are always served the correct version of a site.

Security

In some applications, e.g. the DHS "Ready" campaign, it would be SAFER to use cookies to store information than to have peoples' personal information stored directly on government servers.

Major Issues

Classification

What kinds of cookies are relevant when?
- Persistent vs. session
- First-party vs. Third-party

Use of Opt-in

Opt-in is a possible option to neutralize the question of collecting users' information without their knowledge.
Opt-in is effective because with most cookies, users have to enter information manually at least once.
Even with opt-in, however, many in the public have fear because they don't clearly understand why government wants this information and what they could/will do with it.