Rep. Joe Barton (R-Tex.) says so-called
"supercookies" should be illegal.
Barton, founding co-chairman of the Congressional Privacy
Caucus, was responding to a Wall Street
Journal article identifying the cookies as hard to detect and
"sticky" even after information is deleted and as being used on two
sites, MSN and video site Hulu.
In a statement, Barton said he thought they should be
outlawed. "I find the most recent news of these so-called 'supercookies'
disturbing and the fact that major websites like Hulu and MSN didn't know they
were attached to their products is just plain frightening."
He called on the industry to do a better job of
protecting privacy. Barton, along with Privacy Caucus Co-Chair Ed Markey
(D-Mass.) has been active on the privacy protection front, seeking privacy
policy from Facebook, Apple and others in the wake of various data breaches and
data collection/privacy policy revelations.
Barton and Markey both back privacy legislation to
address the issue of protecting online privacy and giving consumers more choice
over how their information is used to track and market to them.
