Zero-Knowledge Knows a Little About P3P

A week before industry leaders meet in Massachusetts
for a workshop on the Platform for Privacy Preferences (P3P) standard, Zero-Knowledge Systems rolled out a tool that enables those
responsible for maintaining corporate privacy to test and track their Web site’s compliance with P3P in Microsoft Corp.’s Internet Explorer 6.


The Montreal-based security and privacy software maker unveiled P3P Analyzer in a free
Beta trial. What is P3P and why the sudden emphasis on it? Developed by the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C), P3P provides an automated way for users to gain more control over the use of personal information
on Web sites they visit.


P3P is basically a set of multiple-choice questions, covering major aspects of a Web site’s privacy policies. Taken together, they
present a clear snapshot of how a site handles personal information about its users. P3P enabled browsers, such as IE 6, can “read”
this snapshot automatically and compare it to the consumer’s own set of privacy preferences. Businesses want to make sure their
sites comply with P3P because those that don’t conform to the IE 6 settings find parts of their sites broken and third party cookies
discarded, all of which decreases the usability and value of their sites.


Zero-Knowledge’s P3P Analyzer helps the process by scanning the URLs of selected sites to locate P3P Compact Policies and then
reporting on their usage and level of compliance with IE 6. Privacy officers can also use the tool to regularly check their site and
track updates over time, while benchmarking against other sites of interest.


“P3P compliance is a priority of almost every Chief Privacy Officer we meet with, especially Internet retailers. P3P Analyzer gives
them an easy way to analyze and monitor their Website’s compliance with P3P, benchmark it against other sites, and learn more about
the standard,” said John Beans, VP of Product Marketing, Enterprise Products at Zero-Knowledge Systems.

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