Question about P3P policies and cookies

Rigo,

I got your email a few weeks back but have not had a chance to respond
as of yet.  I am wondering if you folks have any opinion/information
about the situation where companies are entering into contractual
arrangements with third-parties to manage subdomains on their behalf
for the purpose of tracking using cookies.

E.g., Apple pays Omniture to create a tracking domain called
metrics.apple.com, having an IP address owned by Omniture, not apple.

Do you have any insight into how P3P should be constructed in
situations like this?  Or, put another way, do you see inherent risk
in companies doing this kind of thing?

I ask because some of the tracking vendors then take aggregate data
and repurpose that into widely viewable reports (e.g., Coremetrics
LIVEmark, WebSideStory Statmarket, ...)  My suspicion is that this is
in conflict with site's stated P3P policy.

Any insight you have is greatly appreciated.  If you'd like to get on
the phone that would be great.

Thanks in advance,
-- 
Eric T. Peterson
Author, Web Analytics Demystified and Web Site Measurement Hacks
Senior Analyst, JupiterResearch
www.webanalyticsdemystified.com

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Received on Thursday, 25 August 2005 02:08:53 UTC