P3P Interop Invitation

April 21, 2000

An Open Invitation to Participate in the
Platform for Privacy Preferences Interoperability Event

The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) is hosting an interoperability
session in New York City on June 21, to "test drive" P3P and to
demonstrate its potential uses and capabilities to a broad audience of
software developers and Web site operators. The "interop" session is
set to start on June 21, 10 a.m., in the auditorium of the AT&T
Building, 32 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY. The P3P Interop is
an open event. The W3C is encouraging all interested developers and
Web site operators to participate in the June 21 session. Other
sessions may be held in other locations later in the summer.

Web site operators and software developers are encouraged to
participate.  Web site operators can translate their privacy policies
into the P3P (XML) format and post it on their web site so that it can
be read by P3P user agent tools. Software developers can demonstrate
any P3P-related service or product including: P3P user agents (built
into browsers, plug-ins, browser helper objects, proxies, shopping
tool bars, infomediaries, etc.), P3P policy generators, P3P-enabled
web site management systems, P3P-enabled data warehousing systems,
etc. Developers of P3P "user agent" software will be able to
demonstrate how their tools read and process P3P policies provided by
the web site operators who participate.

If you are interested in participating, please register so that we can
keep you posted throughout the planning process. We plan to have a
conference call on May 2 for all participants who have registered by
that date.

FOR MORE INFORMATION
P3P Interop Information: http://www.w3.org/P3P/interop
Registration form: http://www.w3.org/P3P/rsvp.html
Latest P3P Specification: http://www.w3.org/TR/P3P/
P3P Project Web Site: http://www.w3.org/P3P/
An Introduction to P3P: http://www.w3.org/P3P/introduction.html

WHAT IS P3P?

The Platform for Privacy Preferences Project, or P3P, is a
specification under development by the World Wide Web Consortium
(W3C). When implemented in Web sites and browsers, the P3P
specification will bring a measure of ease and regularity to Web users
wishing to decide if and under what circumstances to disclose personal
information.

P3P 1.0 creates the framework for standardized, machine-readable
privacy policies, and consumer products that read these policies. Web
sites express their privacy policies in a simple standardized format
that can be downloaded automatically and read by web browsers and
other end-user software tools.  These tools can display information
about a site's privacy policy to end users, and take actions based on
a user's preferences. Such tools might provide positive feedback to
users when the sites they visit have privacy policies matching their
preferences, and provide warnings when a mismatch occurs. They may
also notify users when a site's privacy policy changes.

P3P offers an important opportunity to build greater technical support
to inform Web users about privacy and acts as a catalyst on the part
of Web sites seeking to incorporate privacy protections into the Web's
infrastructure.  While P3P does not alone resolve all online privacy
issues, users' confidence in online transactions will increase when
they are presented with meaningful information and choices about web
site privacy practices.

Received on Friday, 21 April 2000 15:52:57 UTC