The World Wide Web Consortium debuted a long-awaited technology Wednesday that is intended to give Internet users more control over their personal information. The consortium's interoperability session in New York gave companies and privacy advocates the opportunity to add input . . .
The World Wide Web Consortium debuted a long-awaited technology Wednesday that is intended to give Internet users more control over their personal information. The consortium's interoperability session in New York gave companies and privacy advocates the opportunity to add input to the prototype design of the Platform for Privacy Preferences Project (P3P), which will be available in the coming year.

P3P technology makes privacy statements understandable when users want to know how the sites they visit use their personal information. The protocol is designed to allow consumers to express their privacy preferences through their browser, which communicates those preferences to websites in a machine-readable format.

"There is little evidence to support the industry claim that P3P will improve user privacy," said the report, "Pretty Poor Privacy: An Assessment of P3P and Internet Privacy." In fact, P3P is a complex and confusing technology that will make it more difficult for Internet users to protect their privacy, the report said.

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