In the digital world a decade is a long time, yet federal government websites are using the same restrictive policy on “cookies“—small data files stored on a user’s computer—established during the Clinton administration. In this report, ITIF looks at the origins of this federal government policy, the current uses of persistent cookies, and proposes a new framework for the use of persistent cookies on government websites given current trends in e-government. The goal, ITIF argues, should be to loosen the restrictions on the use of cookies and balance privacy against other equally important goals such as usability, accessibility and transparency.

The first two waves of the IT revolution offered state and local IT leaders amazing opportunities to make government more efficient, improve services and increase transparency. Today, an emerging third wave is making it possible for governments to solve pressing public problems in fundamentally new ways.

In the October 2008 issue of the Communications of the ACM, ITIF Senior Analyst Daniel Castro debates the merits of paper-trails with activist David Dill.