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The Platform for Privacy Preferences ( P3P )

Contributor
Tom Lendacky ( toml@us.ibm.com )

Contacts
Harish Dhurvasula ( harishd@netscape.com )
Jeremy Loeb ( loeb@netscape.com )

P3P 1.0 Technical Recommendation issued on 16 April 2002.

What is P3P?

The Platform for Privacy Preferences (P3P), developed by W3C, provides a simple mechanism for users to gain control over the use of personal information by websites they visit. Websites that are P3P enabled will be able to notify users of their privacy practices in a standardized format that can be read by P3P enabled browsers. Furthermore, these practices will be compared to the user's own set of privacy preferences, allowing the user full control over what personal information they share, and with which sites they share it.

What can a P3P enabled browser do?

P3P enabled browsers can inform users about privacy policies before they release any personal information. Users are informed on what data is collected by sites they visit, and how the data will be used. Any discrepancy between sites' practices and users' preferences will be flagged automatically to the user.

Will Mozilla include P3P?

Yes, Mozilla will include P3P. Tom Lendacky contributed an original implementation of P3P to Mozilla based on the September 2000 specification. That code was removed 2/7/2002, so you would need to do a CVS pull before that date to see the source. On the same day, code for the new implementation was checked in.

In the short term, Mozilla will support compact policies and have a policy viewer.

The P3P code lives mostly in mozilla/extensions/p3p.

How to build P3P in Mozilla?

Windows: cd to mozilla/extensions/p3p and type nmake -f makefile.win depend all.

QA Testing

W3C testbed for P3P.

Search Bugzilla for bugs with P3P in the summary.