For as long as there have been commercial sites on the World Wide Web, there's been a struggle between the needs of Web-based businesses and the in users' right to privacy. Web developers need to collect information about users, but they also need to show respect for their privacy. The Platform for Privacy Preferences Project, or P3P, has emerged as a technology to help satisfy the needs of both parties.Developed by the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C), P3P gives Web users more control over what information they disclose about themselves. P3P-enabled web sites declare their privacy policies to browsers. P3P-enabled browsers can then compare the web sites' policies against the user's privacy preferences and alert the user if there is a mismatch. As a result, users are better informed about web privacy practices.Web Privacy with P3P begins with an introduction to P3P and the laws governing online privacy. It then explains the inner workings of the P3P protocol and shows web site developers how to configure their sites for P3P compliance. It gives step-by-step instructions for creating a P3P policy, compact policy, and policy reference file. The book then shifts to show software developers how to build P3P compliance into their products, with a chapter on APPEL, the W3C-developed specification for declaring user preferences, and a chapter devoted to guidelines for developing user interfaces for P3P user agents.As chair of the P3P Specification Working Group at the W3C and co-author of the P3P 1.0 specification, the author, Lorrie Faith Cranor, provides unique insights into how and why P3P was developed. The book also contains a foreword by Stanford law professor Lawrence Lessig.The number of web developers using P3P continues to grow. P3P support is now built into the newest browser versions, including Microsoft Internet Explorer and Netscape Navigator. This book explains how the P3P features work in these browsers, and the impact they will have on your web site. Modern software developers, privacy consultants, corporate decision-makers, lawyers, public policy-makers, and many others interested in online privacy issues will make this book an essential addition to their bookshelves. ContentsI- Privacy and P3P

• Introduction to P3P
• The online privacy landscape
• Privacy technology
• P3P history

II- P3P-Enabling your Web site

• Overview and options
• P3P policy syntax
• Creating P3P policies
• Creating and referencing policy reference files
• Data schemas
• P3P-Enabled Web site examples

III- P3P Software and design

• P3P vocabulary design issues
• P3P user agents and other tools
• A P3P preference exchange language (APPEL)
• User interface

IV- Appendixes

• P3P policy reference file syntax quick reference
• Configuring Web servers to include P3P headers
• P3P in IE6
• How to create a customized privacy import file for IE6
• P3P guiding principles