Because you can control cookies, a government regulation restricting cookies is needless nannying. It may marginally protect you from government tracking -- they have plenty of other methods, both legitimate and illegitimate -- but it won't protect you from tracking by others, including entities who may share data with the government.... By moving away from the stultifying limitation on federal cookies, the federal government acknowledges that American grown-ups can and should look out for their own privacy.

Of course, as cyber-bureaucrats , the feds haven't changed anything yet. The comments period just ended, and they have yet to decide what they're going to change, if anything, and how they're going to do it.

If all of this makes you want to pick up a pitchfork and a torch and storm the White House gates, consider this: InfoWorld . So do many other sites you probably visit on a regular basis.

Of course, InfoWorld doesn't have an army (more like a geek militia) or police powers. It's not likely to send someone to your door to question you about your Web habits or incarcerate you for years. So the bar here is much higher; the federal government needs to do better than private industry in protecting our privacy, not just meet the status quo. Let's hope they do.

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