The Platform for Privacy Preferences Project, or P3P, is a protocol designed to give users more control of their personal information when browsing Internet Websites. P3P was developed by the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) and was officially recommended on April 16, 2002.
Overview
As the World Wide Web became a genuine medium in which to sell products and services, Electronic commerce websites tried to collect more information about the people who purchased their merchandise. Some companies used controversial practices such as tracker cookies to ascertain the users' demographic information and buying habits, using this information to provide specifically targetted advertisements. Users who saw this as an invasion of privacy would sometimes turn off HTTP cookies altogether, or use anonymous proxy servers to keep their personal information secure.
P3P is designed to allow users to choose the level of personal information they wish to supply to websites. The website provides a machine readable policy in an XML file, which specifies how the site handles the user's personal information. A P3P enabled web browser can compare this information with the user's preferences, or display the P3P privacy report in a readable format. The user can then choose what level of personal information they wish to share and when to allow cookies.
P3P User Agents
Microsoft Internet Explorer 6 provides the ability to display P3P privacy policies, and compare the P3P policy with your own settings to decide whether or not to allow cookies from a particular site. Internet Explorer versions prior to 6 can use the AT&T Privacy Bird.
The Mozilla web browser also provides an extension for P3P usage [1].
Criticisms
The Electronic Privacy Information Center has been critical of P3P and believe it will make it too difficult to protect a user's privacy [2]. P3P is relying on each individual website to be honest with its policy files, as P3P-enabled browsers are unable to physically test that the site's privacy policy actually functions as advertised.
As people become comfortable with P3P it may be limiting the perceived need of related privacy legislation.
See also
External links
Last updated: 08-18-2005 02:04:31
