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NO PRIVACY FOR PUBLIC PCs?THE COOKIE MAN COMETH. And if he gets what he wants, he may establish legal precedent that could scare government bureaucrats for years to come. Geoffrey Davidian, publisher of The Putnam Pit, a Tennessee newspaper, is suing the town of Cookeville for not sharing its ''cookies,'' the electronic markers that a Web site deposits on your computer's hard drive when you surf the Internet. Davidian wants the info as part of a long-running battle with Cookeville that began with attempts to see some city personnel records. He has since expanded his investigations to see if city officials are wasting time cruising the Internet. Davidian is suing for access to the cookies under federal civil rights laws, claiming his rights have been violated. He says if city officials lose, they'll have to pay out of their own pockets. The case raises big legal questions. What data on civic PCs are public? And who owns the cookies--the PC that sends them or the one that gets them? Cookeville says cookies are privileged. But that may not be so says Stanton McCandlish of the Electronic Frontier Foundation. The case has yet to go to trial, though courts have ruled that most government-created paper documents are in the public domain. Which means Davidian may yet get his hands in the cookie jar.
EDITED BY LARRY LIGHT & ROBERT McNATT
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Updated Jan. 15, 1998 by bwwebmaster
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