Debate focuses on how to protect users' privacy if Web-tracking tools are allowed on federal sites

Some website performance consultants and civil liberties advocates are at odds over the best way to protect user privacy, should the White House decide to lift a decade-old ban on Web-tracking devices for federal sites.

The Office of Management and Budget is still revising a 2000 policy that forbids such devices, including cookies, on federal websites after soliciting public and agency comment last summer, OMB officials said on Wednesday. Cookies are applications that monitor visitors' navigation habits, such as pages they frequently visit or passwords they enter, so developers can update and enhance a website in accordance with their preferences.

OMB instituted the cookie prohibition to alleviate privacy concerns, but a decade later, as technology has advanced, even some privacy advocates recognize the benefits of analyzing website traffic and want the ban lifted, with stipulations. OMB is expected to relax the ban between now and the end of June, after conferring with agencies further.

One stipulation the Center for Democracy and Technology recommended during talks with OMB in recent weeks is that federal websites should be required to let individuals opt out of having information about their online activities collected. On Tuesday, the center said Google had set an example for federal agencies earlier that day by adding a privacy option to the company's traffic analysis service.

The service -- Google Analytics -- helps website owners aggregate and measure general trends on a website, such as number of visitors and average time spent on one page. Google's opt-out approach gives people the opportunity to download an application that will stop data from being collected by Google Analytics when they visit a website that is using the service to measure traffic.

But some Web analytics experts say putting the onus on agencies to offer opt-out technology would be burdensome for programmers. Instead, federal sites should provide visitors with plain language instructions on how to use their own browser settings to disable cookies and other tracking devices. Such settings allow people to indicate sites they do not want to accept cookies from, said officials at Semphonic, a Web analytics consulting firm that has helped the National Institutes of Health measure website performance.

"You can make it easy for people today to not accept cookies if they choose," said Phil Kemelor, Semphonic vice president for strategic analytics. "Generally, today, that information is buried in the privacy policy. If you made that information perhaps more clear ... you would assuage the concerns there are about misuse of cookies."

He added the key is "to train people to perhaps take more responsibility for their own security. And I would like to see things move in that direction rather than just add more restraints on federal agencies. It constrains them in trying to improve their websites."

Other privacy activists said under this user-responsibility scenario, people will never truly have full control over their data.

"That doesn't empower the consumer," said Lillie Coney, associate director with the Electronic Privacy Information Center. "This is like going back to the Wild West. If somebody sticks you up, you better have the ability and the means and the will to defend yourself. The problem has been the actions of the entity that has the data" when they constantly change privacy rules and settings.

Some public policy observers sense that Google's actions were prompted by regulatory concerns regarding the forthcoming federal cookie reforms and reports of a German ruling that outlaws using Web analytics tools without the consent of the person being tracked.

Google spokesman Brian Richardson said, "We've been working on these options for over a year, long before the German [authorities'] recent ruling."

He added, "We're taking a step to provide greater user choice when it comes to privacy and hope others in the industry do so as well."

Google's presence in the federal marketplace has been expanding since 2005, when the company partnered with NASA's Ames Research Center to research large-scale data management.