Web cookies became a contested policy issue before surveillance capitalism normalized them

Evidence

By 1996, the function of cookies had become a contested public policy issue. Federal Trade Commission workshops in 1996 and 1997 discussed proposals that would assign control of all personal information to users by default with a simple automated protocol. Advertisers bitterly contested this scheme, collaborating instead to avert government regulation by forming a “self-regulating” association known as the Network Advertising Initiative. Still, in June 2000 the Clinton administration banned cookies from all federal websites, and by April 2001, three bills before Congress included provisions to regulate cookies. — Shoshana Zuboff, The Age of Surveillance Capitalism, 272

Categorization

• QUESTION: What happened to those three 2001 cookie-regulating bills?
• XREF: Connects to the Network Advertising Initiative and self-regulation debates in platform governance literature likely encountered elsewhere. — connects to: Marketers pioneered tracking through cookies before social media platforms refined it — Nick Couldry & Ulises A. Mejias, The Costs of Connection: How Data Is…, 114; Benign convenience helped surveillance capitalism escape political debate — Naomi Klein, Doppelganger: A Trip into the Mirror…, 276; Privacy controversies have not slowed the global expansion of surveillance-capitalist services — Shoshana Zuboff, The Age of Surveillance Capitalism, 469

Broader Connections

• Benign convenience helped surveillance capitalism escape political debate #expands (0.80) — Naomi Klein, Doppelganger, 276
• Privacy controversies have not slowed the global expansion of surveillance-capitalist services #contradicts (0.75) — Shoshana Zuboff, The Age of Surveillance Capitalism, 469