Web site privacy issues have received their share of press recently, accompanied by proposals to facilitate a greater sense of security for users concerning the collection and distribution of their personal data. However, there has been little in the way of associated follow-through in this area, on either the part of large, mainstream e-commerce sites or small independent ones.
ZDNet reviews the status of a privacy solution called the Platform for Privacy Preferences (P3P), created by the World Wide Web Consortium. Once thought to be a viable application that will allow web site users to ascertain and opt-in or out of personal data collection, interest in and adoption of P3P has remained stagnant.
Further undermining the further implementation of P3P is this report from EPIC released on November 1, “Why is P3P Not a PET?”. EPIC clearly enumerates the qualifications of privacy enhancing technologies (PETs) protocals and why P3P fails to protect personal data mining.