Note: Many topics at this site are reduced versions of the text in "The Encyclopedia of Networking and Telecommunications." Search results will not be as extensive as a search of the book's CD-ROM.

P3P is an industry standard developed by the World Wide Web Consortium that helps users control the amount of information that Web sites collects about them. The concern is that Web sites collect personal information about users that may be sold or distributed to other sites. P3P is a response by consumer advocacy groups to privacy concerns. Governments are also concerned about privacy issues, and P3P is being developed as a system that can be used to comply with future government privacy directives.

P3P allows users to specify in advance the type of privacy they want for their personal information. This is done in P3P-enabled Web browsers. Upon entering a P3P-enabled Web site, the user's privacy preferences are compared against the privacy policy of the Web site. These privacy policies are specified in P3P formats. If there are privacy disagreements, the user may be alerted and can negotiate how privacy is to be handled. Alternatively, privacy may be negotiated between the Web browser and Web server automatically in the background based on predefined user preferences. If agreements are negotiated, these will be retained for future use.

Copyright (c) 2001 Tom Sheldon and Big Sur Multimedia.
All rights reserved under Pan American and International copyright conventions.