Internet Says: 'Me Want Cookie'

[Commentary] Today's controversial cookies are the small text files that track where people go online. Web sites do a poor job of explaining how and why this information is used, even as details about our lives are increasingly knowable online. Risks to privacy make this a race between smarter self-regulation on the Web and threatened new regulation by the Federal Trade Commission. People involved in building the Web are rightly proud of the openness of the digital culture. Most consider that cookies cause no harm and are key to the growth of the Internet, but many Web users feel left in the dark about how information about them is used and not used. Unless people can be reassured, there is a real risk that some day soon we'll find the untested hands of regulators in the cookie jar.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB120994540824466285.html?mod=todays_us_opinion
(requires subscription)