W3C Approves Web Privacy Standard

jbc writes: "The World Wide Web Consortium has approved the Platform for Privacy Preferences, or P3P, a standard that would allow browser software to automatically compare a user's privacy preferences with the privacy policies of a visited web site."

Comments

A Mixed blessing

[Jon Peterson]

I was looking at implementing this. It's a big old PITA. Enough of a PITA that I doubt 'amateur' sites will bother doing it - after all, it's not like they've been the ones abusing privacy, right?

I think it will end up being just like those commercial 'approval stamps' like TrustE. It looks great, but doesn't mean too much. Almost the opposite - any site that's gone to the trouble of filling out the damn XML file that's required probably has something to hide.

I'm not wholly against it, but I just have to ask why? Create a lot of unecessary standards and technical specs and formats, get poor old webmasters to support it and keep up to date with it and tolerate browser bugs with it, and why? Because ppl are too dumb to read a privacy policy and want their web browser to auto-read an XML version of it and auto-tell them how good it is?

Sorry, but it's a standard that we don't need. Already there are commercial tools out there to generate the damn file, because the format is so verbose. Only big corporate sites are going to bother with it, so 99% of the web sites you read simply won't activate the feature, meaning users don't get into the habit of paying attention.

Maybe I'm just overworked :-).

This about sums it up:

[quantax]

From the article: "Regardless of whether a site uses P3P, the system won't prevent sites from collecting data or sharing the information with marketers, nor would it let users negotiate with sites on how information gets used." Though this is a nice idea and all, I highly doubt its going to accomplish anything. Websites will continue to violate your privacy for marketing purposes whether P3P is installed or not. Next time perhaps they could do something to actually help consumers in a more aggressive fashion.

Re:This about sums it up:

[D.A. Zollinger]

I disagree. I think that when it comes time to choose which web sites to visit, or which portals to make your home page, people may make their choice by who follows P3P, and who doesn't. After all, if I have the choice of visiting Fox News or Cable News Network or USA Today, and each of which provide pretty much the same information, this could be the deciding factor.

Gee, I go to MSN and they protect my privacy, vs. Yahoo who will sell my information first chance they get, I think I would rather visit the site that has the better privacy policy, and thanks to P3P I know who that is!

Re:This about sums it up:

[User 956]

I don't care what fucking newspapers you read. Stay the fuck away from my children, you child-molesting, shit-eating, pot-smoking hippie jew. Instead of posting your jew drivel on Slashdot, why don't you go suicide-bomb some Palestinians and leave us the fuck alone?

And tell your nigger friends to quit playing that fucking rap music so loud while I'm trying to fucking sleep.

Re:This about sums it up:

[jo42]

And there is nothing from stopping a web site putting up a bogus security policy.

Re:This about sums it up:

[KjetilK]

Obviously, you need laws too, like we have in Europe.

FO&D C.T., The Retort.

[Anonymous Coward]

"The Omelette" - A retort to Malda's Omelette analogy.

Let me try to give you an analogy for Slashdot's homepage.
Yes, please liken something to something in a cliché staid analogy because we the reader are too stupid to understand any overly complex and high level reason why you can't explain yourself properly. Either that or you are full of crap, don't know what you are doing and are lucky as hell to have what you have.

It's like an omelette: it's a combination of sausage and ham and tomatoes and eggs and more.
It is a motley collage, a miasma, a montage or eclectic and seemingly unrelated things. It may be a myriad of unrelated things, related at only the most abstract levels. It certainly isn't an omelette.

Over the years, we've figured out what ingredients are best on Slashdot.
What critical acclamations have you had that makes you think this is so? Just because you get a lot of hits, and subsequently subject your readership to unwanted bandwidth consuming detritus, doesn't mean you know what's best. It is just like a Reynolds family member claiming they know what's best for them, nicotine and smoke are not unhealthy, and then they die of lung cancer. You are an egotistical megalomaniac. If this site was run based on a meritocratic method rather and juvenile selfishness, it would have serious potential.

The ultimate goal is, of course, to create an omelette that I enjoy eating: by 8pm, I want to see a dozen interesting stories on Slashdot.
The ultimate goal is to please yourself, to feed your id. You have no desire to please the community by which you make your living. You are selfish, sheltered and removed from your community. You are on a one way soapbox, a pulpit, and you talk at people. I would probably include you in a list of people I would kill if I could get away with it.

I hope you enjoy them too.
I do not.

I believe that we've grown in size because we share a lot of common interests with our readers.
Mobocracy is good? You would rather collect people without regard to quality. This means nothing. Budweiser is the most consumer beer, but its garbage. This is analogous to Slashdot, to stoop to your food and beverage analogy. Bud beer. Its good because a lot of people drink it. No, no. Don't bother trying to get critical acclimation. Don't bother, you know as long as you "control" Slashdot, you never will.

But that doesn't mean that I'm gonna mix an omelette with all sausages, or someday throw away the tomatoes because the green peppers are really fresh.
So serving rotten food is acceptable how? Its better to keep your silence and let people wonder if you are fool than to speak up and remove all doubt. "Gonna." Pathetic. Simply pathetic. This is a hick like expression, akin to something on the order of, "I'm gonna open a can of whup ass on him for peggin Mary Joe Susie Lee."

There are many components to the Slashdot Omelette. Stories about Linux. Tech stories. Science. Legos. Book Reviews. Yes, even Jon Katz.
Jon Katz is the worst thing about this place. If it isn't the wasting of my bandwidth that I pay for, its this that bothers me the most. On a sidebar, I would like to hold you and the rest of the scum who send ad banners to my connection legally liable for unwanted bandwidth usage. This crap half the time doesn't even come from your site. It would be less of an affront if you stored you vile ads on your own site, but you took the easy way out and decided to outsource the production of garbage to similarly-devoid-of-ethics people with slightly more intelligence and infrastructure to provide this illegal content.

By mixing and matching these things each and every day, we bring you what I call Slashdot. On some days it definitely is better than others, but overall we think it's a tasty little treat and we hope you enjoy eating as much as we enjoy cooking it.
Grotesque things are often of huge interest to people. This holds true with me in regards to Slashdot. I hate you, I hate Jon Katz, I hate most of the content here. Some of the best stuff is written at -1. You would suppress those who are different while you are "different like everyone else," just another marginally educated half assed "programmer" who on the scale of things lucked out even more so than Bill Gates (reason: I would assume your IQ is probably his divided by 2 or 3 and you aren't working at a McDonald's where you should be). Whenever you have participated in a discussion thread, you are obnoxious, rude and ungrateful. You policies are horrible, you content is basically a smattering of other people's work and you benefit from this. You web page reeks of someone who completes nothing that he starts. Your obsession with anime is a testament to how juvenile you are, your spelling is horrific, you grammar is oft questionable; you are a poor editor Mr. Malda.

I hope only the worst outcomes for any and all of your endeavors henceforth. I hope your fiancée or if you are lucky, your marriage falls apart. I hope your Jubei breaks. I hope you lose your job. I hope that you fail because you are displacing true talent.

Answered by: CmdrTaco
Last Modified: 6/14/00

See it in action...

[mrpull]

here. I don't know how good the implementation is, but IE6 has supported P3P for a few months now.
mr.

So... (Idle Question)

[great throwdini]

When will we see Slashdot implement P3P?

Legality and XML

[Nyarly]

There doesn't seem to be any required correlation between my XML description of my site's privacy policy and my actualy privacy policy.

For that matter, can anyone comment on the following questions:

• How actionabile is violating my site's privacy policy?
• What about if the policy is described in XML instead of English?
• What if both are used, but the descriptions differ? (i.e., the XML says "We'll keep it all secret," but the English says "We're telling everyone.")

As an aside, wouldn't it be useful to keep a authenticated cache (somewhere other than in dreamland) of the P3P contracts I've agreed to? So that a site can't arbitrarily modify their contract and release my information in accordance with the new contract?

My P3P's different

[satanami69]

It involves me swapping files with two chicks at once. Oh yeah.

This is also very bad

[WillSeattle]

In that sites without a privacy "rating" are automatically rated as failing your listed privacy rating.

So most homepages fail. And many .org sites fail - unless they have full-time professional webmasters.

Only the commercial sites .com and government sites .gov gain from this implementation.

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