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GAO-01-147R 1 (2000-10-20)

handle is hein.gao/gaocrptalho0001 and id is 1 raw text is: G AO Accountability * Integrity* Reliability United States General Accounting Office Washington, DC 20548 October 20, 2000 The Honorable Fred Thompson Chairman, Committee on Governmental Affairs United States Senate Subject: Internet Privacy: Federal Agency Use of Cookies Dear Mr. Chairman: As requested by your office, we have been reviewing selected federal agencies' use of cookies on their web sites. A cookie is a short string of text-not a program-that is sent from a web server to a web browser when the browser accesses a web page. The use of cookies allows the server to recognize returning users, track on-line purchases, or maintain and serve customized web pages. Domain cookies are cookies placed by the visited web site. However, some web sites also allow the placement of third-party cookies-cookies placed on a visitor's computer by a domain other than the site being visited. The domain and third- party cookies may be further grouped into session cookies and persistent cookies. Session cookies are short-lived, are used only during the browsing session, and expire when the user quits the browser. Persistent cookies specify expiration dates, remain stored on the client's computer until the expiration date, and can be used to track users' browsing behavior by identifying their Internet addresses whenever they return to a site. The purpose of this letter is to respond to your request for interim information on federal agency use of cookies as of September and October 2000. Specifically, you asked us to identify agency web sites that used cookies but did not disclose this use in their privacy policies and to identify the type of cookie used. In addition, you asked us to identify agency web sites that use persistent cookies. Enclosure I provides this information. We reviewed 65 web sites. This total consisted of (1) the web sites operated by the 32 high- impact agencies, which handle the majority of the government's contact with the public; (2) 32 web sites randomly selected from the General Services Administration's government domain registry data base; and (3) the Federal Trade Commission's web site. See enclosure II for a list of the sites we reviewed. We reviewed certain web sites twice. During our August through September 2000 review, we visited all 65 web sites to determine (1) which of the selected federal sites were using cookies, (2) the type of cookies used, and (3) whether the privacy policy disclosed that the site may or does use cookies. We again reviewed sites that used cookies on October 17, 2000. We conducted our review from August through October 2000 in accordance with generally accepted government auditing standards. GAO-01-147R Federal Agency Use of Cookies

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