Just a few days ago, we wondered why the White House was giving preferential treatment to Google’s YouTube. As CNET’s Chris Soghoian points out today, the federal government has very strict rules about using persistent cookies on government sites. However, the new privacy policy for the WhiteHouse.gov site explicitly exempts YouTube from having to follow these guidelines, as the Obama team wants to be able to continue to embed YouTube videos on the new White House blog.
What About the Other Video Sharing Sites?
Last week, we criticized the Obama administration (and others like Allen Stern and Chris Soghoian have done so before us) for giving preferential treatment to Google. While the technology at the White House is apparently not quite up to par, the federal government in the U.S. should be able to stream videos through its own service at this point without making YouTube its default online video service.
We more than appreciate the fact that the Obama administration is trying to be far more transparent and open than any of its predecessors. However, giving a commercial entity this special treatment simply doesn’t feel right.
As CNET also points out, the statement on the White House privacy policy that you can download the videos directly from YouTube without YouTube ever setting a cookie is simply wrong.
Here is the full text of the relevant part of the privacy policy (note that the link in the first paragraph is not valid):
The federal government has guidelines for the use of persistent cookies available at http://www.whitehouse.gov/omb/memoranda/m03-22.html#20. The goals of the guidelines are to enable the useful functioning of federal websites while protecting individual privacy.
For videos that are visible on WhiteHouse.gov, a ‘persistent cookie’ is set by third party providers when you click to play a video. (We may experience some engineering difficulties as the new Whitehouse.gov is posted and reviewed. We intend, however, to fully enforce the above provisions as soon as possible. If you are experiencing any difficulties, please contact us.)
This persistent cookie is used by YouTube to help maintain the integrity of video statistics. A waiver has been issued by the White House Counsel’s office to allow for the use of this persistent cookie.
If you would like to view a video without the use of persistent cookies, a link to download the video file is typically provided just below the video.
