White House: Switch From YouTube To Akamai Was About Options, Not Privacy Concerns
This story was written by Tameka Kee.
The Obama Administration has denied that it stopped using YouTube for the President's weekly video chats because of privacy complaints; White House spokesman Nick Shapiro said the switch to *Akamai* was "more about better understanding our internal capabilities than it is a position on third-party solutions or a policy," per the NYT.
But Harvard researcher Chris Soghoian told the NYT that the "evidence speaks for itself. The fact that they are paying for a video solution speaks to privacy issues." Soghoian authored the original CNET article that we linked to, it has since been updated; CNET also issued another post as a correction.
The White House has been working with YouTube to address some of the privacy concerns; it switched from using a video player that automatically served cookies to Whitehouse.gov visitors, to one that only serves cookies if they click on the video itself.
By Tameka Kee