Congressman Adam Smith (D-WA) and 4 New Democrat colleagues in the House - introduce a resolution that recognizes the importance of the Platform for Privacy Preferences (P3P) specification as a key tool for consumers who want to protect their privacy on the Internet. In an effort to promote widespread adoption of the technology, the resolution also urges all government and commercial web sites operators to make their sites P3P compliant.

This Note is a response to a request from the W3C for Pennie & Edmonds' opinion as to whether implementations of the W3C's Platform for Privacy Preferences Project ("P3P") specification would infringe any claim of Intermind's U.S. Patent No. 5,862,325.

"[P3P] has been both lauded as the answer to everyone's privacy worries and castigated as a Trojan horse that will divert public attention from real problems. The truth is, it's neither. It's merely a potentially nifty tool that might help ensure privacy in cyberspace -- if the government gets its act together. "

This article describes the history and current state of P3P and evaluates the effect of P3P against legal requirements, particularly against those strict laws in Germany and Europe.

CNN.com article: Some companies are gradually implementing the proposed Platform for Privacy Preferences[...] But it remains unclear whether P3P will succeed as a standard.

Cover Pages article with links to specifications, websites and tools.

Everything you need to know about doing business on the Internet. Information for C-Level executives and small-to-mid-sized business managers.

The World Wide Web Consortium reaches cross-industry agreement on an XML-based language for expressing Web site privacy policies.

This article reports on P3P implementation and adoption, and explains how P3P promotes increased transparency about web site data practices and complements other privacy protection efforts.

This is a brief definition of terms regarding P3P settings, policies and cookies from Microsoft for I.E. 6.0 and Windows XP.

New privacy-enhancing controls in Microsoft's Internet Explorer 6.0 can be rendered useless by a long-known security flaw in Windows Media Player.

"Rep. Adam Smith, D-Wash. and four other Democrats today introduced to the House of Representatives a resolution that would encourage use of privacy technology standards for government and commercial websites." Story by L. Scott Tillett.

Paper from the University of Miami School of Law discussing P3P, its potential benefits and pitfalls.

Many of you wrote in to agree with me that the W3C's Platform for Privacy Preferences might be a far cry from an antidote to privacy woes.

This article does not mention P3P directly. It is included here for historical reference. Microsoft began its internal P3P initiative with this acquisition.

This article talks about the Platform for Privacy Preferences Project, and talks about P3P's goal of building trust between users and Web site operators without requiring users to read and interpret the site's privacy policies.

COMMENTARY--Online privacy isn't the issue it once was, if indeed people really ever cared about it.

Lorrie Cranor, author of Web Privacy with P3P offers an introduction to P3P and an overview of what you need to do to prevent IE6 from blocking your cookies.

What exactly is collected, shared and acted upon isn't always evident to end users. This may lead to trust problems between site visitors and site owners, resulting in loss of business and even legal problems.

ZDNet News Article: Consumer groups say P3P technology allows companies to collect more consumer information, not less.

An overview of the W3C's new P3P protocol for implementing consumer privacy preferences. Includes discussion on Microsoft, I.E. 6 and online privacy for consumers.

'Intelligent Enterprise' article on Microsoft's P3P involvement.

A critical article published by Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC) and Junkbusters.

Early P3P Wired article talks about P3P and P3P issues from the WWW7 conference in Australia in March '98.

An overview on the privacy requirements of cookies associated with their sites and on the cookie filtering implemented in Internet Explorer 6.

New Architect review of IBM's P3P Policy Editor. Pro's and Con's as well as an introduction to the practical use of the Editor to generate your policy.

Article about the debate within the privacy community as some leaders question P3P's usefulness in safeguarding consumers.

A look at the emerging technologies and management of corporate privacy policies. The spawning of a new software and services sector.

Six months after its recommendation as an Internet standard, a major privacy initiative is entering an awkward adolescence as software heavyweights adopt it and individual Web sites leave it to languish.

Andy Oram article discussing P3P as a social protocol, as well as his views of the motivations behind the protocol.

"Recoding the Architecture of Cyberspace Privacy: Why Self-Regulation and Technology Are Not Enough." An essay which compares and contrasts two competing privacy issues: Internet consumers ability to control their own information through P3P, with the ability of copyright holders to enforce their rights over intellectual property through a combination of legal sanctions and technology.

Article by Richard M. Smith point out an Internet Explorer potential privacy design flaw.

Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu surveyed 250 companies with turnover of $3 million-plus: the type of company likely to be targeted when privacy laws come into effect at year's end.

It is easy for agencies that already have privacy policies to create a P3P statement. All it takes is an understanding of P3P, knowledge of your privacy practices, and a technical person or team that knows how your site is structured and a little bit about the new Web standards

Early P3P article discusses issues with the P3P policy and its development.

XML.com article. Claims of patent infringement and the potential implications for implementors of the W3C's Platform for Privacy Preferences framework

News & Technology - CNETAsia - When Microsoft introduced version 6 of its Internet Explorer browser last year, many Webmasters were puzzled to find that their cookies were being blocked in increasing numbers.

But some privacy groups say the technology is nothing more than hype. TechWeb article.

The future of a key Web standard that would give consumers control over their online privacy hangs in the balance after news emerged that an entrepreneur will likely be awarded a set of patents on the technology.