The White House on Friday denied published reports that it uses small programs, called cookies, to track the movement of visitors on the White House web site.  

 

Web software security specialist Richard M. Smith and the Associated Press reported that the White House web site, through a web analytics contractor called WebTrends, was using cookies that were specifically banned by a two-year-old directive issued from the Office of Management and Budget.

 

David Almacy, the White House Internet director, denied that the White House web site is issuing cookies to any visitors to its Web site, but confirmed the site does keep track of what pages are viewed and for how long with the help of WebTrends. He blamed Mr. Smith’s software, called a packet sniffer, for the confusion.

 

“What was happening was that users that visited other WebTrends sites picked up WebTrend cookies from these other sites,” said Mr. Almacy. “Mr. Smith’s packet sniffer program then assumes that because we use WebTrends our site placed the cookies on his hard drive.”