White House Continues to Give Preferential Treatment to Google: Exempts YouTube from Privacy Rules
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.
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.
