Copyright ©2000 W3C® (MIT, INRIA, Keio), All Rights Reserved. W3C liability, trademark, document use and software licensing rules apply.
This is the specification of the Platform for Privacy Preferences (P3P). This document, along with its normative references, includes all the specification necessary for the implementation of interoperable P3P applications.
This section describes the status of this document at the time of its publication. Other documents may supersede this document. The latest status of this document series is maintained at the W3C.
This is the 18 October 2000 Last Call Working Draft of "The Platform for Privacy Preferences 1.0 (P3P1.0) Specification", for review by W3C members and other interested parties. The last call review period ends 31 October 2000. Please send review comments before the review period ends to www-p3p-public-comments@w3.org (publicly archived).
This document has been produced by the P3P Specification Working Group as part of the P3P Activity. The Working Group has agreed [members only] to its publication as a Last Call draft. Following this Last Call period, the Working Group intends to submit this specification for publication as a Candidate Recommendation.
This document is a draft document and may be updated, replaced, or obsoleted by other documents at any time. It is inappropriate to use W3C Working Drafts as reference material or to cite them as other than "work in progress". A revised version of this specification is expected to advance toward W3C Recommendation status after two interoperable implementations have been demonstrated.
A change log with a summary of the modifications occurred from the previous public version is included at the end of this document for convenience.
A list of current public W3C Working Drafts can be found at http://www.w3.org/TR.
META
and
POLICY-REFERENCES
elements
EXPIRY element
POLICY-REF
element
INCLUDE
and EXCLUDE
elements
EMBEDDED-INCLUDE
and
EMBEDDED-EXCLUDE
elements
COOKIE-INCLUDE
and
COOKIE-EXCLUDE
elements
METHOD
element
The Platform for Privacy Preferences Project (P3P) enables Web sites to express their privacy practices in a standard format that can be retrieved automatically and interpreted easily by user agents. P3P user agents will allow users to be informed of site practices (in both machine- and human-readable formats) and to automate decision-making based on these practices when appropriate. Thus users need not read the privacy policies at every site they visit.
Although P3P provides a technical mechanism for ensuring that users can be informed about privacy policies before they release personal information, it does not provide a technical mechanism for making sure sites act according to their policies. Products implementing this specification MAY provide some assistance in that regard, but that is up to specific implementations and outside the scope of this specification. However, P3P is complementary to laws and self-regulatory programs that can provide enforcement mechanisms. In addition, P3P does not include mechanisms for transferring data or for securing personal data in transit or storage. P3P may be built into tools designed to facilitate data transfer. These tools should include appropriate security safeguards.
The P3P1.0 specification defines the syntax and semantics of P3P privacy policies, and the mechanisms for associating policies with Web resources. P3P policies consist of statements made using the P3P vocabulary for expressing privacy practices. P3P policies also reference elements of the P3P base data schema -- a standard set of data elements that all P3P user agents should be aware of. The P3P specification includes a mechanism for defining new data elements and data sets, and a simple mechanism that allows for extensions to the P3P vocabulary.
P3P version 1.0 is a protocol designed to inform Web users of the data-collection practices of Web sites. It provides a way for a Web site to encode its data-collection and data-use practices in a machine-readable XML format known as a P3P policy. The P3P specification defines:
The goal of P3P version 1.0 is twofold. First, it allows Web sites to present their data-collection practices in a standardized, machine-readable, easy-to-locate manner. Second, it enables Web users to understand what data will be collected by sites they visit, how that data will be used, and what data/uses they may "opt-out" of or "opt-in" to.
As an introduction to P3P, let us consider one common scenario that makes use of P3P. Sheila has decided to check out a store called CatalogExample, located at http://www.catalog.example.com/. Let us assume that CatalogExample has placed P3P policies on all their pages, and that Sheila is using a Web browser with P3P built in.
Sheila types the address for CatalogExample into her Web browser. Her browser is able to automatically fetch the P3P policy for that page. The policy states that the only data the site collects on its home page is the data found in standard HTTP access logs. Now Sheila's Web browser checks this policy against the preferences Sheila has given it. Is this policy acceptable to her, or should she be notified? Let's assume that Sheila has told her browser that this is acceptable. In this case, the homepage is displayed normally, with no pop-up messages appearing. Perhaps her browser displays a small icon somewhere along the edge of its window to tell her that a privacy policy was given by the site, and that it matched her preferences.
Next, Sheila clicks on a link to the site's online catalog. The catalog section of the site has some more complex software behind it. This software uses cookies to implement a "shopping cart" feature. Since more information is being gathered in this section of the web site, the Web server provides a separate P3P policy to cover this section of the site. Again, let's assume that this policy matches Sheila's preferences, so she gets no pop-up messages. Sheila continues and selects a few items she wishes to purchase. Then she proceeds to the checkout page.
The checkout page of CatalogExample requires some additional information: Sheila's name, address, credit card number, and telephone number. Another P3P policy is available that describes the data that is collected here and states that her data will be used only for completing the current transaction, her order.
Sheila's browser examines this P3P policy. Imagine that Sheila has told her browser that she wants to be warned whenever a site asks for her telephone number. In this case, the browser will pop up a message saying that this Web site is asking for her telephone number, and explaining the contents of the P3P statement. Sheila can then decide if this is acceptable to her. If it is acceptable, she can continue with her order; otherwise she can cancel the transaction.
Alternatively, Sheila could have told her browser that she wanted to be warned only if a site is asking for her telephone number and was going to give it to third parties and/or use it for uses other than completing the current transaction. In that case, she would have received no prompts from her browser at all, and she could proceed with completing her order.
Note that this scenario describes one hypothetical implementation of P3P. Other types of user interfaces are also possible.
P3P policies use an XML encoding of the P3P vocabulary to identify the legal entity making the representation of privacy practices in a policy, enumerate the types of data or data elements collected, and explain how the data will be used. In addition, policies identify the data recipients, and make a variety of other disclosures including information about dispute resolution, and the address of a site's human-readable privacy policy. P3P policies must cover all relevant data elements and practices (but note that legal issues regarding law enforcement demands for information are not addressed by this specification; it is possible that a site that otherwise abides by its policy of not redistributing data to others may be required to do so by force of law). P3P declarations are positive, meaning that sites state what they do, rather than what they do not do. The P3P vocabulary is designed to be descriptive of a site's practices rather than simply an indicator of compliance with a particular law or code of conduct. However, user agents may be developed that can test whether a site's practices are compliant with a law or code.
P3P policies represent the practices of the site. Intermediaries such as telecommunication providers, Internet service providers, proxies and others may be privy to the exchange of data between a site and a user, but their practices may not be governed by the site's policies.
P3P1.0 user agents can be built into web browsers, browser plug-ins, or proxy
servers. They can also be implemented as Java applets or JavaScript; or built
into electronic wallets, automatic form-fillers, or other user data management
tools. P3P user agents look for references to a P3P policy at a well-known
location, in P3P headers in HTTP responses, and in P3P link
tags embedded in HTML content. These references indicate the location of
a relevant P3P policy. User agents can fetch the policy from the indicated
location, parse it, and display symbols, play sounds, or generate user prompts
that reflect a site's P3P privacy practices. They can also compare P3P policies
with privacy preferences set by the user and take appropriate actions. P3P
can perform a sort of "gate keeper" function for data transfer mechanisms
such as electronic wallets and automatic form fillers. A P3P user agent
integrated into one of these mechanisms would retrieve P3P policies, compare
them with user's preferences, and authorize the release of data only if a)
the policy is consistent with the user's preferences and b) the requested
data transfer is consistent with the policy. If one of these conditions is
not met, the user might be informed of the discrepancy and given an opportunity
to authorize the data release themselves.
Web sites can implement P3P1.0 on their servers by translating their
human-readable privacy policies into P3P syntax and then publishing the resulting
files along with a policy reference file that indicates the parts of the
site to which the policy applies. Automated tools can assist site operators
in performing this translation. P3P1.0 can be implemented on existing HTTP
1.1-compliant Web servers without requiring additional or upgraded software.
Servers may publish their policy reference files at a
well-known location, or they may reference
their P3P policy reference files in HTML content using a
link
tag. Alternatively, compatible servers may be configured
to insert a P3P extension header into all HTTP responses that indicates the
location of a site's P3P policy reference file.
Web sites have some flexibility in how they use P3P: they can opt for one P3P policy for their entire site or they can designate different policies for different parts of their sites. A P3P policy MUST cover all data generated or exchanged as part of a site's HTTP interactions with visitors. In addition, some sites may wish to write policies that cover all data an entity collects, regardless of how the data is collected.
The P3P Specification Working Group removed significant sections from earlier drafts of the P3P1.0 specification in order to facilitate rapid implementation and deployment of a P3P first step. The group envisions the release of future versions of the P3P specification after P3P1.0 is deployed. This specification would likely include improvements based on feedback from implementation and deployment experience as well as four major components that were part of the original P3P vision but not included in P3P1.0:
This document, along with its normative references, includes all the specification necessary for the implementation of interoperable P3P applications.
The [ABNF] notation used in this specification is specified in RFC2234 and summarized in Appendix 7. However, note that such syntax is only a grammar representative of the XML syntax: all the syntactic flexibilities of XML are also implicitly included; e.g. whitespace rules, quoting using either single quote (') or double quote ("), character escaping, comments, case sensitivity, order of attributes. Note that while XML allows flexibility in the ordering of element attributes, it does not allow flexibility in the ordering of elements. XML elements MUST be given in the order represented by the document type definitions (DTDs).
In the sections that follow a number of XML elements are introduced. Each
element is given in angle brackets ("<element>
"), followed
by a list of valid attributes. All listed attributes are optional, except
when tagged as mandatory. Note that many XML elements are shown
in the BNF with separate beginning and ending tags to allow optional elements
inside them. If no elements are included, then, following standard XML rules,
a self-closing element may be used instead.
The following key words are used throughout the document and should be read as interoperability requirements. This specification uses words as defined in RFC2119 [KEY] for defining the significance of each particular requirement. These words are:
user.home.postal
". The P3P1.0 base data
schema specifies a number of data sets.
Locating a P3P policy is one of the first steps in the operation of the P3P protocol. Services use policy references to state what policy applies to a specific URI or set of URIs. User agents use policy references to locate the privacy policy that applies to a page, so that they can process that policy for the benefit of their user.
Policy references are used extensively as a performance optimization. P3P policies are typically several kilobytes of data, while a URI that references a privacy policy is typically less than 100 bytes. In addition to the bandwidth savings, policy references also reduce the need for computation: policies can be uniquely associated with URIs, so that a user agent need only parse and process a policy once rather than process it with every document to which the policy applies. Furthermore, by placing the information about relevant policies in a centralized location, Web site administration is simplified.
A policy reference file is used to associate P3P policies with certain regions of URI-space. The policy reference file is used to make any or all of the following statements:
All of these statements are made in the body of the policy reference file. The last can also be made using HTTP expiration headers on the policy reference file. See section 2.3 for examples and explanations.
This section describes the mechanisms used to indicate the location of a policy reference file. Detailed syntax is also given for the supported mechanisms.
The location of the policy reference file can be indicated using one of three
mechanisms. The policy reference file may be located in a predefined
"well-known" location, or a document may
indicate a policy reference file through an HTML LINK
tag, or
through an HTTP header. The policy reference file specifies the P3P policy
that applies to that document, and possibly to other URIs as well. The policy
reference file is an XML (see [XML]) file that can specify
the policy for a single Web document, portions of a Web site, or for an entire
site. The policy reference file may refer to one or more P3P policies; this
allows for a single reference file to cover an entire site, even if different
P3P policies apply to different portions of the site.
Note that if user agents support retrieving HTML content over HTTP, they MUST handle all three mechanisms listed above interchangeably; none of the mechanisms overrides the other. See also the requirements for non-ambiguity.
Note that policies are applied at the level of HTTP entities. An entity, retrieved by fetching a URI, has a P3P policy associated with it. A "page" from the user's perspective may be composed of multiple HTTP entities; each entity may have its own P3P policy associated with it. As a practical note, however, placing many different P3P policies on different entities on a single page may make rendering the page and informing the user of the relevant policies difficult for user agents. Additionally, services SHOULD attempt to craft their policy reference files such that a single policy reference file covers any given "page"; this will speed up the user's browsing experience.
For a user agent to process the policy that applies to a given entity, it must locate the policy reference file for that entity, fetch the policy reference file, parse the policy reference file, fetch any required P3P policies, and then parse the P3P policy or policies.
This document does not specify how P3P policies may be associated with documents retrieved by means other than HTTP. However, it does not preclude future development of mechanisms for associating P3P policies with documents retrieved over other protocols. Furthermore, additional methods of associating P3P policies with documents retrieved using HTTP may be developed in the future.
Web sites using P3P SHOULD place a policy reference file in a "well-known"
location. To do this, a policy reference file would be placed in the site's
/w3c
directory, under the name p3p.xml
. Thus a
user agent could request this policy reference file by using a
GET
request for the resource /w3c/p3p.xml
.
Note that sites are not required to use this mechanism; however, by using this mechanism, sites can ensure that their P3P policy will be accessable to user agents before any other resources are requested from the site. This will reduce the need for user agents to access the site using safezone practices. Additionally, if a site chooses to use this mechanism, the policy reference file located in the well-known location is not required to cover the entire site. For example, sites where not all of the content is under the control of a single organization MAY choose not to use this mechanism, or MAY choose to post a policy reference file which covers only a limited portion of the site.
Use of the well-known location for a policy reference file does not preclude use of other mechanisms for specifying a policy reference file. Portions of the site MAY use any of the other supported mechanisms to specify a policy reference file, so long as the non-ambiguity requirements are met.
For example, imagine a shopping-mall Web site run by the MallExample company.
On their Web site (mall.example.com
), companies offering goods
or services at the mall would get a company-specific subtree of the site,
perhaps in the path /companies/company-name
. The
MallExample company may choose to put a policy reference file in the well-known
location which covers all of their site except the /companies
subtree. Then if the ShoeStoreExample company has some content in
/companies/shoestoreexample
, they could use one of the other
mechanisms to indicate the location of a policy reference file covering their
portion of the mall.example.com
site.
One case where using the well-known location for policy reference files is
expected to be particularly useful is in the case of a site which has divided
its content across several hosts. For example, consider a site which uses
a different logical host for all of its Web-based applications than for its
static HTML content. The other mechanisms allowed for specifying the location
of a policy reference file require that some URI on the host being accessed
must be fetched to locate the policy reference file. However, the well-known
location mechanism has no such requirement. Consider the example of an HTML
form located on www.example.com
. Imagine that the action URI
on that form points to server cgi.example.com
. The policy reference
file that covers the form is unable to make any statements about the action
URI that processes the form. However, the site administrator publishes a
policy reference file at http://cgi.example.com/w3c/p3p.xml
that covers the action URI, thus enabling a user agent to easily locate the
P3P policy that applies to the action URI before submitting the form contents.
Any document retrieved by HTTP MAY point to a policy reference file through
the use of a new response header, the P3P
header
([P3P-HEADER]). If a site is using P3P headers,
it SHOULD include this on responses for all appropriate request methods,
including HEAD
and OPTIONS
requests.
The P3P header gives one or more comma-separated directives. The syntax follows:
[1] | p3p-header |
= |
`P3P: ` p3p-header-field *(`,` p3p-header-field) |
[2] | p3p-header-field |
= |
policy-ref-field | extension-field |
[3] | policy-ref-field |
= |
`policyref="` URI `"` |
[4] | extension-field |
= |
token [`=` (token | quoted-string) ] |
Here,
URI is defined as per
RFC 2396
[URI], token and quoted-string
are defined by [HTTP1.1]. |
In keeping with the rules for other HTTP headers, the P3P
portion
of this header may be written in any case.
The policyref
directive gives a URI which specifies the location
of the policy reference file which will state the P3P policy covering the
document that pointed to the reference file, and possibly others as well.
Note that fetching the URI given in the policyref
directive
MAY result in a 300-class HTTP return code (redirection); user agents MUST
interpret those redirects with normal HTTP semantics. Services should note,
of course, that use of redirects will increase the time required for user
agents to find and interpret their policies. The policyref
URI
MUST NOT be used for any other purpose beyond identifying and referencing
P3P policies.
User-agents which find unrecognized directives (in the
extension-field
s) MUST ignore the unrecognized directives. This
is to allow easier deployment of future versions of P3P.
1. Client makes a GET
request.
GET /index.html HTTP/1.1 Host: catalog.example.com Accept: */* Accept-Language: de, en User-Agent: WonderBrowser/5.2 (RT-11)
2. Server returns content and the P3P
header pointing to the
policy of the page.
HTTP/1.1 200 OK P3P: policyref="http://catalog.example.com/P3P/PolicyReferences.xml" Content-Type: text/html Content-Length: 7413 Server: CC-Galaxy/1.3.18
link
Tag
Servers MAY serve HTML content with embedded link
tags that
indicate the location of the relevant P3P policy reference file. This use
of P3P does not require any change in the server behavior.
The link
tag encodes the information that could be expressed
using the P3P
header. The link tag takes the following form:
[5] | p3p-link-tag |
= |
`<link rel="P3Pv1" href="` URI `">` |
Here, URI is defined as per
RFC 2396
[URI]. |
In order to illustrate with an example the use of the link
tag,
we consider the policy reference expressed in Example
2.1 using HTTP headers. That example can be equivalently expressed
using the link tag with the following piece of HTML:
<link rel="P3Pv1" href="http://catalog.example.com/P3P/PolicyReferences.xml">
Finally, note that since the p3p-link-tag
is embedded in an
HTML document, its character encoding will be the same as that of the HTML
document. In contrast to P3P policy and policy reference documents (see
section 2.3 and section 3
below), the p3p-link-tag
need not be encoded using
[UTF-8].
This section explains the contents of policy reference files in detail.
Consider the case of a Web site wishing to make the following statements:
/P3P/Policy1.xml
applies to the entire site, except
the subtrees /catalog
, /cgi-bin
, and
/servlet
.
/P3P/Policy2.xml
applies to all documents in the
/catalog
directory (and its subdirectories).
/P3P/Policy3.xml
applies to all documents in the
/cgi-bin
and /servlet
directories (and their
subdirectories), except for /servlet/unknown
.
/servlet/unknown
.
These statements could be represented by the following piece of XML:
<META xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/10/18/P3Pv1"> <POLICY-REFERENCES> <EXPIRY max-age="172800"/> <POLICY-REF about="/P3P/Policy1.xml"> <INCLUDE>/*</INCLUDE> <EXCLUDE>/catalog/*</EXCLUDE> <EXCLUDE>/cgi-bin/*</EXCLUDE> <EXCLUDE>/servlet/*</EXCLUDE> </POLICY-REF> <POLICY-REF about="/P3P/Policy2.xml"> <INCLUDE>/catalog/*</INCLUDE> </POLICY-REF> <POLICY-REF about="/P3P/Policy3.xml"> <INCLUDE>/cgi-bin/*</INCLUDE> <INCLUDE>/servlet/*</INCLUDE> <EXCLUDE>/servlet/unknown</EXCLUDE> </POLICY-REF> </POLICY-REFERENCES> </META>
This example includes a relative expiry time in the document. The expiry time could also be expressed through HTTP headers:
Cache-Control:
max-age=172800
header with this file, or
Expires
header dated 2 days
past the Date
header in the response.
This section defines the syntax and semantics of P3P policy reference files. All policies MUST be encoded using [UTF-8]. P3P servers MUST encode their policy references using this syntax. P3P user agents MUST be able to parse this syntax.
One significant point to make about the syntax of policy reference files is that the syntax defined here does not have an extension mechanism. The syntax for P3P policies has a powerful extension mechanism, but that mechanism is not supported for policy reference files.
A policy reference file may contain multiple POLICY-REF
elements.
If it does contain more than one element, they MUST be processed by user
agents in the order given in the file. When a user agent is attempting to
determine what policy applies to a given URI, it MUST use the first
POLICY-REF
element in the policy reference file which applies
to that URI.
Policy reference files make statements about what policy applies to a given URI. Policy reference files support a simple wildcard character to allow making statements about regions of URI-space. The character asterix ("*") is used to represent a sequence of 0 or more of any character. No other special characters (such are those found in regular expressions) are supported. Note that since the asterix is also a legal character in URIs ([URI]), some special conventions have to be followed when encoding such "extended URIs" in a policy reference file:
The wildcard character MAY be used in the INCLUDE
and
EXCLUDE
elements, in the EMBEDDED-INCLUDE
and
EMBEDDED-EXCLUDE
elements, and in the
COOKIE-INCLUDE
and COOKIE-EXCLUDE
elements.
META
and
POLICY-REFERENCES
elements
The META
element contains a complete policy reference file.
Exactly one POLICY-REFERENCES
element MUST be in a policy reference
file. Optionally, one POLICIES
element can follow. Additionally,
other XML markup MAY follow the POLICY-REFERENCES
(or
POLICIES
, if present) element, although that markup MUST be
ignored by any P3P1.0 user agent.
<POLICY-REFERENCES
>
POLICY-REF
(policy reference)
elements. It MAY also contain one
EXPIRY
element (indicating
their expiration time), and also some in-line policies.
[6] | prf |
= |
`<META xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/10/18/P3Pv1">` policyrefs [policies] PCDATA "</META>" |
[7] | policyrefs |
= |
"<POLICY-REFERENCES>" [expiry] *policyref "</POLICY-REFERENCES>" |
Here PCDATA is defined in
[XML]. |
EXPIRY
element
It is desirable for servers to inform user agents how long they can use the claims made in a policy reference file. By enabling clients to cache the contents of a policy reference file, it reduces the time required to process the privacy policy associated with a Web page. This also reduces load on the network. In addition, clients that don't have a valid policy reference file for a URI will need to use "safe zone" practices for their requests. If clients have policy reference files which they know are still valid, then they can make more informed decisions on how to proceed.
The lifetime of a policy reference file tells user agents how long they can rely on the claims made in the reference file. For example, if a policy reference file has a lifetime of 3 days, then a user agent need not reload that file for 3 days, and can assume that the references made in that reference file are good for 3 days. All of the policy references made in a single policy reference file will receive the same lifetime. The only way to specify different lifetimes for P3P policies is to use separate policy reference files for each policy.
When picking a lifetime for policies and policy reference files, sites need to pick a lifetime which balances two competing concerns. One concern is that the lifetime ought to be long enough to allow user agents to receive significant benefits from caching. The other concern is that the site would like to be able to change their policy without waiting for an extremely long lifetime to expire. It is expected that lifetimes in the range of 1-7 days would be a reasonable balance between these two competing desires. Sites also need to remember the policy update requirements when updating their policies.
When a policy reference file has expired, the information in the policy reference file MUST NOT be used by a user-agent until that user-agent has successfully revalidated the policy reference file, or has fetched a new copy of the policy reference file.
As stated in section 2.3, there are two mechanisms for specifying the lifetime
of policy reference files. Two different mechanisms are provided to give
sites additional flexibility in deploying policy reference files. A policy
reference file MAY contain an EXPIRY
element, which gives the
lifetime for the file. If there is no EXPIRY
element in the
policy reference file, then the HTTP cache control headers associated with
the policy reference file give the lifetime of the policy reference file.
Note that while user agents are not obligated to refetch policy reference files or policy files that have not expired, they MAY choose to revalidate those files before their expiry period has passed, in order to reduce the need for using "safe zone" practices.
EXPIRY
element
The EXPIRY
element can be used in a policy reference file and/or
in a P3P policy to state how long the policy reference
file (or policy) remains valid. The expiry is given
as either an absolute expiry time, or a relative expiry time. An absolute
expiry time is a time, given in GMT, until which the policy reference file
(or policy) is valid. A relative expiry time gives
a number of seconds for which the policy reference file (or
policy) is valid. This expiry time is relative to
the time the response was sent from the origin server (as stated by the
Date:
header in the response).
[8] | expiry |
= |
"<EXPIRY" (absdate|reldate) "/>" |
[9] | absdate |
= |
`date="` HTTP-date `"` |
[10] | reldate |
= |
`max-age="` delta-seconds `"` |
Here, HTTP-date is defined in section 3.3.1 of [HTTP1.1], and delta-seconds is defined in section 3.3.2 of [HTTP1.1]. |
When a policy reference file contains no EXPIRY
element, the
HTTP headers served with the policy reference file determine its lifetime.
However, user agents MUST NOT use heuristic expiration based on last-modified
to compute a lifetime for the reference file. When using the HTTP headers
to determine the lifetime of a policy reference file, user agents MUST compute
that lifetime for the policy reference file based on Expires
,
Cache-Control
, or Pragma
headers served with the
file if they are available. The semantics of these headers are defined by
[HTTP]. If none of these headers is available,
the lifetime MUST be set to 24 hours from the time the document was sent
from the origin server. Origin servers SHOULD use either the
EXPIRY
element or one of the HTTP headers listed above to give
an explicit lifetime for their policy reference files.
The possible presence of caches in the network and the heuristic expiration
mechanism in HTTP considerably complicates lifetime considerations. Consider
the case of policy reference files that have no explicit cache lifetime defined
by the origin server (i.e., none of the headers listed above are included
in the response). A network cache will, in all likelihood, compute a cache
lifetime for the policy reference file based on its last-modified date; the
resulting cache lifetime could be significantly longer that 24 hours. If
a cache implements HTTP 1.0, then when a user agent then retrieves this policy
reference file, the user agent has no way to know how long the reference
file may have been in the cache. It would then be impossible for the user
agent to determine if the reference file's lifetime has already expired,
or when it will expire. HTTP 1.1 caches improve the situation somewhat, as
the HTTP protocol states that HTTP 1.1-compliant caches MUST send an
Age
header when serving a request from their cache. However,
even this is not sufficient; the cache could return a file with an age exceeding
the 24-hour lifetime defined here, resulting in a useless policy reference
file. To avoid these problems, user agents MUST insure that they load a fresh
copy of the policy reference file when it is fetched. Thus, a user agent
MUST include either a Pragma: no-cache
or a Cache-Control:
no-cache
request-header when fetching a policy reference file. The
former is suggested for compatibility with HTTP 1.0 caches.
Note that it is impossible for a client to accurately predict the amount of latency that may affect an HTTP request. Thus, if the policy reference file covering a request is going to expire soon, clients MAY wish to consider warning their users and/or revalidating the policy reference file before continuing with the request.
The following situations have their semantics specifically defined:
EXPIRY
element, and
it is served with one of the HTTP headers listed in
the previous subsection 2.3.2.3.3, the
EXPIRY
header takes precedence for determining the lifetime
of the policy reference file.
Expires:
HTTP header as well as one
in an expires-date attribute of an EXPIRY
element.
EXPIRY
element,
the first one takes precedence for determining the lfetime of the policy
reference file.
POLICY-REF
element
A policy reference file may refer to multiple P3P policies, specifying
information about each. The POLICY-REF
element describes attributes
of a single P3P policy. Elements within the POLICY-REF
element
give the location of the policy and specify the areas of URI-space that each
policy covers.
POLICY-REF
about
(mandatory attribute)
#policy-name
, where
policy-name
is the value given on the name
attribute of a policy in this policy reference file.
[11] | policy-ref |
= |
`<POLICY-REF about="` URI `">` *include *exclude *cookie-include *cookie-exclude *embedded-include *embedded-exclude *method-element `</POLICY-REF>` |
Here, URI is defined as per
RFC 2396
[URI]. |
INCLUDE
and
EXCLUDE
elements
Each INCLUDE
or EXCLUDE
element specifies one local
URI or set of local URIs. A set of URIs is specified if the wildcard character
'*' is used in the URI-pattern. These elements are used to specify the portion
of the Web site that is covered by the policy referenced by the enclosing
POLICY-REF
element.
When INCLUDE
(and optionally, EXCLUDE
) elements
are present in a POLICY-REF
element, it means that the policy
specified in the about
attribute of the POLICY-REF
element applies to all the URIs at the requested host corresponding to the
local-URI(s) matched by any of the INCLUDE
s, but not matched
by an EXCLUDE
element.
If a METHOD
element (section
2.3.2.8) specifies one or more methods for an enclosing policy reference,
it follows that all methods not mentioned are consequently
not covered by this policy. In the case that this is the only policy
reference for a given URI prefix, user agents MUST assume that NO policy
is in effect for all methods NOT mentioned in the policy reference file.
It is legal, but pointless, to supply an EXCLUDE
element without
any INCLUDE
elements; in that case, the EXCLUDE
element MUST be ignored by user agents.
A policy reference file can only cover URIs on the same host as the reference
file. Therefore, the INCLUDE
and EXCLUDE
elements
MUST specify only local URI prefixes; they MUST NOT refer to URIs on other
hosts. This requirement does NOT apply to the location of the P3P policy
file (the about
attribute on the POLICY-REF
element).
Note that the set of URIs specified with INCLUDE
and
EXCLUDE
does not include cookies that might be triggered when
requesting one of such URIs: in order to associate policies with cookies,
the COOKIE-INCLUDE
and
COOKIE-EXCLUDE
elements are needed.
[12] | include |
= |
"<INCLUDE>" relativeURI "</INCLUDE>" |
[13] | exclude |
= |
"<EXCLUDE>" relativeURI "</EXCLUDE>" |
Here, relativeURI is defined as per
RFC 2396
[URI], with the addition that the '* ' character
is to be treated as a wildcard, as defined in
section 2.3.2.1.2. |
EMBEDDED-INCLUDE
and
EMBEDDED-EXCLUDE
elements
HTML pages often contain links to other resources that are embedded directly
in the page, such as images, sounds, layers or frames. Thus, in order to
render the page, the user agents may need to make additional requests that
might or might not be covered by the policy in effect for the page that is
currently laid out. Because embedded content could be served by a third-party
server (and INCLUDE
and EXCLUDE
MUST specify only
local URI prefixes) additional elements are needed to associate a policy
with that content.
Each EMBEDDED-INCLUDE
or EMBEDDED-EXCLUDE
element
specifies a third-party absolute URI (see [URI]).
These prefixes are used to specify (similarly to INCLUDE
and
EXCLUDE
) the third-party servers who are covered by the policy
specified by the about
attribute when their content is embedded
within the documents on the Web site where the policy reference file resides.
However, to limit the scope of when an absolute URI should be considered
"embedded", we make use of the HTTP Referer
header:
WhenEMBEDDED-INCLUDE
(and optionally,EMBEDDED-EXCLUDE
) elements are present in aPOLICY-REF
element, it means that the policy specified in theabout
attribute of thePOLICY-REF
element applies to all the URI(s) matched by anyEMBEDDED-INCLUDE
's, and not matched by anEMBEDDED-EXCLUDE
element, when those URIs are normally requested with aReferer
header that contains a URI from a resource which is covered by the policy reference file containing the embedded URI.
This means that the policy will be applied to objects embedded or linked
to, but not objects which are embedded in them. Proxy implementations will
be able to examine the Referer
header generated by the HTTP
User-Agent, locate the policy applying to the Referer
object,
and then determine if an embedded content policy is in effect.
P3P user agents are not required to send Referer
headers to
web sites; indeed, depending on user preferences and safezone issues, a user
agent may discard the Referer
after using it to determine whether
an EMBEDDED-INCLUDE
policy applies.
User agents SHOULD interpret EMBEDDED-INCLUDE
and
EMBEDDED-EXCLUDE
elements in a policy reference file to determine
the policy that applies to third-party content. Such policy association SHOULD
NOT be used for content that will generate a redirect.
Example 2.5 states that /P3P/Policy1.xml
applies to all documents
in the subtree /docs/
plus the file
/other/index.html
. In addition, that policy applies to embedded
documents requested from the /ads/
directory -- but not the
/network/
subdirectory -- on hosts in the
adserver.example.com
domain.
Example 2.5:
<META xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/10/18/P3Pv1"> <POLICY-REFERENCES> <POLICY-REF about="/P3P/Policy1.xml"> <INCLUDE>/docs/*</INCLUDE> <INCLUDE>/other/index.html</INCLUDE> <EMBEDDED-INCLUDE>http://*.adserver.example.com/ads/*</EMBEDDED-INCLUDE> <EMBEDDED-EXCLUDE>http://*.adserver.example.com/ads/network/*</EMBEDDED-EXCLUDE> </POLICY-REF> </POLICY-REFERENCES> </META>
The syntax for the EMBEDDED-INCLUDE
and
EMBEDDED-EXCLUDE
elements is:
[16] | embedded-include |
= |
"<EMBEDDED-INCLUDE>" absoluteURI "</EMBEDDED-INCLUDE>" |
[17] | embedded-exclude |
= |
"<EMBEDDED-EXCLUDE>" absoluteURI "</EMBEDDED-EXCLUDE>" |
Here, absoluteURI is defined as per
RFC 2396
[URI], with the addition that the '*' character is to
be treated as a wildcard, as defined in section
2.3.2.1.2 |
Note that sites MAY choose not to specify a policy for some or all of their embedded content. In those cases P3P user agents SHOULD attempt to obtain a P3P policy directly from the site hosting the embedded content.
Also note that, just like in the case of INCLUDE
and
EXCLUDE
, the set of URIs specified with
EMBEDDED-INCLUDE
and EMBEDDED-EXCLUDE
does not
include cookies that might be triggered when requesting one of such URIs:
in order to associate policies with cookies, the COOKIE-INCLUDE
and COOKIE-EXCLUDE
elements are needed.
COOKIE-INCLUDE
and
COOKIE-EXCLUDE
elements
HTML pages often contain instances of state management mechanisms, also known
as cookies. Because cookies may have a scope which is distinct from the scope
of the page, user agents may need to make additional requests that might
or might not be covered by the policy in effect for the page that is currently
laid out. The COOKIE-INCLUDE
and COOKIE-EXCLUDE
elements are used to attach policies to cookies.
For the purpose of this specification, state management mechanisms use either
SET-COOKIE
or SET-COOKIE2
headers, and
cookie-namespace is defined as the value of the Name, Domain and Path attributes,
specified in [COOKIES] and
[STATE].
Each COOKIE-INCLUDE
or COOKIE-EXCLUDE
element specifies
a cookie-namespace, consisting of the Name, Domain and Path attributes, any
or all of which may be wildcarded. These prefixes are used to specify (similarly
to INCLUDE
and EXCLUDE
) the cookie-namespaces which
are covered by the policy specified by the about attribute when the cookies
are set from the documents on the Web site where the policy reference file
resides.
When COOKIE-INCLUDE
(and optionally,
COOKIE-EXCLUDE
) elements are present in a
POLICY-REF
element, it means that the policy specified in the
about
attribute of the POLICY-REF
element applies
to every cookie whose cookie-namespace is matched by any
COOKIE-INCLUDE
's, and not matched by a
COOKIE-EXCLUDE
element.
A site cannot declare policies for cookies unless the cookies are on its
own site, or they are set from elements that are embedded (in the sense of
Section 2.3.2.6) on its own site. User agents
SHOULD accordingly interpret COOKIE-INCLUDE
and
COOKIE-EXCLUDE
elements in a policy reference file to determine
the policy that applies to cookies.
The policy which applies to a cookie applies until the policy expires. If the policy associated with a cookie has expired, or if the user agent preferences are changed, then the user agent SHOULD reevaluate the cookie policy before sending the cookie.
Example 2.3 states that /P3P/Policy1.xml
applies to all cookies.
Example 2.3:
<META xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/10/18/P3Pv1"> <POLICY-REFERENCES> <POLICY-REF about="/P3P/Policy1.xml"> <COOKIE-INCLUDE>*..*/*</COOKIE-INCLUDE> </POLICY-REF> </POLICY-REFERENCES> </META>
Example 2.4 states that /P3P/Policy1.xml
applies to all cookies,
except cookies with the cookie name value of
"obnoxious-cookie
", a domain value of
".example.com
", and a path value of "/
", and that
/P3P/Policy2.xml
applies to all cookies with the cookie name
of "obnoxious-cookie
", a domain value of
".example.com
", and a path value of "/
".
Example 2.4:
<META xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/10/18/P3Pv1"> <POLICY-REFERENCES> <POLICY-REF about="/P3P/Policy1.xml"> <COOKIE-INCLUDE>*</COOKIE-INCLUDE> <COOKIE-EXCLUDE>obnoxious-cookie..example.com/</COOKIE-EXCLUDE> </POLICY-REF> <POLICY-REF about="/P3P/Policy2.xml"> <COOKIE-INCLUDE>obnoxious-cookie..example.com/<COOKIE-INCLUDE> </POLICY-REF> </POLICY-REFERENCES> </META>
[14] | cookie-include |
= |
"<COOKIE-INCLUDE>" NAME "." Domain Path "</COOKIE-INCLUDE>" |
[15] | cookie-exclude |
= |
"<COOKIE-EXCLUDE>" NAME "." Domain Path "</COOKIE-EXCLUDE>" |
Here, NAME , Domain and
Path are defined as per
RFC 2965
[STATE], with the addition that the '* '
character is to be treated as a wildcard, as defined in
section 2.3.2.1.2. |
Note that, conforming to [STATE], if an explicitly
specified Domain
value does not start with a dot, the user agent
MUST supply a leading dot for it. Hence, the separation between a
NAME
and a Domain
inside a
COOKIE-INCLUDE
(or COOKIE-EXCLUDE
) element can
be easily identified by finding the rightmost occurrence of a double dot
"..
" in the element content. Also, since every Path
begins with the "/
" symbol, which cannot occur in a
Domain
, the separation between a Domain
and a
Path
can be similarly identified by finding the first occurrence
of "/
" after the rightmost double dot.
METHOD
element
By default, a policy reference applies to the stated URIs regardless of the
method used to access the resource. However, a Web site may wish to define
different P3P policies depending on the method to be applied to a resource.
For example, a site may wish to collect more data from users when they are
performing PUT
or DELETE
methods than when performing
GET
methods.
The METHOD
element in a policy reference file is used to state
that the enclosing policy reference only applies when the specified methods
are used to access the referenced resources. The METHOD
element
may be repeated to indicate multiple applicable methods. If the
METHOD
element is not present in a POLICY-REF
element,
then that POLICY-REF
element covers the resources indicated
regardless of the method used to access them.
So, to state that /P3P/Policy1.xml
applies to all documents
in the subtree /docs/
for GET
and HEAD
methods, while /P3P/Policy2.xml
applies for PUT
and DELETE
methods, the following policy reference would be
written:
Example 2.6:
<META xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/10/18/P3Pv1"> <POLICY-REFERENCES> <POLICY-REF about="/P3P/Policy1.xml"> <INCLUDE>/docs/*</INCLUDE> <METHOD>GET</METHOD> <METHOD>HEAD</METHOD> </POLICY-REF> <POLICY-REF about="/P3P/Policy2.xml"> <INCLUDE>/docs/*</INCLUDE> <METHOD>PUT</METHOD> <METHOD>DELETE</METHOD> </POLICY-REF> </POLICY-REFERENCES> </META>
Note that HTTP requires the same behavior for GET
and
HEAD
requests, thus it is inappropriate to specify different
P3P policies for these methods. The syntax for the METHOD
element
is:
[18] | method-element |
= |
`<METHOD>` Method `</METHOD>` |
Here, Method is defined in the section 5.1.1
of [HTTP1.1]. |
A policy reference file specifies the policy which applies to a given URI. The meaning of this is that the indicated policy describes all effects of performing any of the methods listed in the policy reference file against the given URI.
There is a general rule which describes what it means for a P3P policy to
cover a URI: the referenced policy MUST cover actions that the user's
client software is expected to perform as a result of requesting that URI.
Obviously, the policy must describe all data collection performed by site
as a result of processing the request for the URI. Thus, if a given URI is
covered for terms of GET
requests, then the policy given by
the policy reference file MUST describe all data collection performed by
the site when that URI is fetched. Likewise, if a URI is covered for
POST
requests, then any data collection that occurs as a result
of posting a form or other content to that URI MUST be described by the policy.
The concept of "actions that the client software is expected to perform" includes the setting of client-side cookies or other state-management mechanisms invoked by the response. If executable code is returned when a URI is requested, then the P3P policy covering that URI MUST cover certain actions which will occur when that code is executed. The covered actions are any actions which could take place without the user explicitly invoking them. If explicit user action causes data to be collected, then the P3P policy covering the URI for that action would disclose that data collection.
Some specific examples:
Forms deserve special consideration, as they often link to CGI scripts or other server-side applications in their action URIs. It is often the case that those action URIs are covered by a different policy than the form itself.
If a user agent is unable to find a matching prefix for a given action
URI in the policy reference file that was referenced from the page,
it SHOULD assume that no policy is in effect. Under these circumstances,
user agents SHOULD check the well-known
location on the host of the action URI to attempt to find a policy reference
file that covers the action URI. If this does not provide a P3P policy to
cover the action URI, then a user agent MAY try to issue a HEAD
request to an action URI before actually submitting any data in order to
find the policy in effect. Services SHOULD ensure that server-side applications
can properly respond to such HEAD
requests and return the
corresponding policy reference link in the headers. In case the underlying
application does not understand the HEAD
request and no
policy has been predeclared for the action URI in question, user agents MUST
assume that no policy is in effect and SHOULD inform the user about
this or take the corresponding actions according to the user's preferences.
Note that services might want to make use of the
<METHOD>
element in order to declare policies for server-side
applications that only cover a subset of supported methods, e.g., POST or
GET. Under such circumstances, it is acceptable that the application in question
only supports the methods given in the policy reference file (i.e.,
HEAD
requests need not be supported). User agents SHOULD NOT
attempt to issue a HEAD
request to an action URI if the relevant
methods specified in the form's method
attribute have been properly
predeclared in the page's policy reference file.
In some cases, different data is collected at the same
action URI depending on some selection in the form. For example, a search
service might offer to both search for people (by name and/or email) and
(arbitrary) images. Using a set of radio buttons on the form, a single
server-side application located at one and the same action URI handles both
cases and collects the required information necessary for the search. If
a service wants to predeclare the data collection practices of the server-side
application it MAY declare all of the data collection practices
in a single policy file (using a <INCLUDE>
declaration matching the action URI). In this case, user agents MUST assume
that all data elements are collected under every circumstance. This solution
offers the convenience of a single policy but might not properly reflect
the fact that only parts of the listed data elements are collected at a time.
Services SHOULD make sure that a simple HEAD request to the action URI (i.e.,
without any arguments, especially without the value of the selected radio
button) will return a policy that covers all cases.
Note that if a form is handled through use of the GET method, then the action
URI reflects the choice of form elements selected by the user. In some cases,
it will be possible to make use of the wildcard syntax allowed in policy
reference files to specify different policies for different uses of the same
form action-handler URI. Therefore, user agents MUST include the query-string
portion of URIs when making comparisons with INCLUDE
and
EXCLUDE
elements in policy reference files.
A very important rule of policy references is that of non-ambiguity: For each resource at a website there MUST be at most one policy active at any given time. Thus two non-expired policy reference files on a given site MUST NOT declare two or more different policy URIs for the same resource.
If a policy reference file at the well-known
location declares a non-expired policy for a given URI, this policy
applies, regardless of any conflicting policy reference files referenced
through HTTP headers or HTML link
tags.
Multiple language versions (translations) of the same policy can be offered
by the server using the HTTP "Content-Language
" header to properly
indicate that a particular language has been used for the policy. This is
useful so that human-readable fields such as entity and consequence can be
presented in multiple languages. The same mechanism can also be used to offer
multiple language versions for data schemas.
Whenever Content-Language
is used to distinguish policies at
the same URI that are offered in multiple languages, the policies MUST have
the same meaning in each language. Two policies (or two data schemas) are
taken to be identical if
Due to the use of the Accept-Language
mechanism, implementors
should take note that user agents may see different language versions of
a policy or policy reference file despite sending the same
Accept-Language
request header if a new language version of
a policy or data schema has been added.
Every P3P-enabled user agent and service SHOULD ensure that all the relevant communications that take place as part of fetching a P3P policy are part of a special "safe zone" in which minimal data collection takes place and any data that is collected is used only in non-identifiable ways. In particular, requests to the well-known location for policy reference files SHOULD be covered by these "safe zone" practices.
To support this safe zone, P3P user agents SHOULD suppress the transmission
of data unnecessary for the purpose of finding a site's policy until the
policy has been fetched. Thus user agents SHOULD NOT send the HTTP
Referer
header or accept cookies while requesting a P3P policy.
User agents MAY also wish to refrain from sending user agent information
or cookies accepted in a previous session while requesting a P3P policy.
User agent implementors need to be aware that there is a privacy trade-off
with using the Accept-Language
HTTP header when requesting a
P3P policy. Sending the correct Accept-Language
header will
allow fetching the P3P policy in the user's preferred natural language (if
available), but does expose a certain amount of information about the identity
of the user. User agents MAY wish to allow users to decide when these headers
should be sent.
Servers SHOULD NOT require the receipt of an HTTP Referer
header,
cookies, user agent information, or other information unnecessary for responding
to the request in order to serve a policy file or policy reference file.
In addition, servers SHOULD NOT use in an identifiable way any information
collected while serving a policy file/policy reference file or responding
to a HEAD
request.
Servers MAY return a P3P
header in the response headers when
a P3P policy is requested. However, it is important to note that the
P3P
header MUST be ignored, and that the "safe zone" requirements
described in this section apply instead. Returning a P3P
header
in such cases is permitted in consideration of the fact that administrators
may find it easier to apply a P3P policy to all documents on a server, and
that requiring policies to be served without a P3P
header may
result in extra work for site administrators.
Note that the safe zone requirements do not say that sites cannot keep identifiable information -- only that they SHOULD NOT use in an identifiable way any information collected while serving a policy file. Tracking down the source of a denial of service attack, for example, would be a legitimate reason to use this information and ignore this recommendation.
Servers SHOULD make every effort to help user agents find P3P policies. In
particular, servers SHOULD place a policy reference file at the
well-known location whenever possible.
When the P3P
HTTP header is used as an alternative, servers
SHOULD:
HEAD
requests
HEAD
requests for any documents
that can be retrieved with GET
requests. Whenever technically
feasible, servers should give a valid response to a HEAD
request
for documents that are normally accessed by other HTTP methods as well (such
as POST
).
P3P policies and references to P3P policies SHOULD NOT, in themselves, contain any sensitive information. This means that there are no additional security requirements for transporting a reference to a P3P policy beyond the requirements of the document it is associated with; so, if an HTML document would normally be served over a non-encrypted session, then the P3P protocol would not require nor recommend that the document be served over an encrypted session when a reference to a P3P policy is included with that document.
Note that when a web site changes its P3P policy, the old policy applies to data collected when it was in effect. It is the responsibility of the site to keep records of past P3P policies and policy reference files along with the dates when they were in effect, and to apply these policies appropriately.
If a site wishes to apply a new P3P policy to previously collected data, it MUST provide appropriate notice and opportunities for users to accept the new policy that are consistent with applicable laws, industry guidelines, or other privacy-related agreements the site has made.
As an aid to sites deploying P3P, several example scenarios are presented, along with descriptions of how P3P is used on those sites.
Scenario 1: Web site basic.example.com uses a variety of images, all of which it hosts. It also includes some forms, which are all submitted directly to the site. This site can declare a single P3P policy for the entire site (or if different privacy policies apply to different parts of the site, it can declare multiple P3P policies). As long as all of the images and form action URIs are in directories covered by the site's P3P policy, user agents will automatically recognize the images and forms as covered by the site's policy.
Scenario 2: Web site busy.example.com uses a content
distribution network called cdn.example.com to host its images so as to reduce
the load on its servers. Thus, all of the images on the site have URIs at
cdn.example.com. CDN acts as an agent to Busy in this situation, and collects
no data other than log data. This log data is used only for web site and
system administration in support of providing the services that Busy contracted
for. Busy's privacy policy applies to the images hosted by CDN, so Busy uses
the EMBEDDED-INCLUDE
element in its policy reference file to
indicate that its P3P policy applies to embedded content served by
cdn.example.com. Optionally, cdn.example.com might also have a policy reference
file that declares that the busy.example.com privacy policy applies to these
images.
Scenario 3: Web site busy.example.com also has a contract
with an advertising company called clickads.example.com to provide banner
ads on its site. The contract allows Clickads to set cookies so as to make
sure each user doesn't see a given ad more than three times. Clickads collects
statistics on how many users view each ad and reports them to the companies
whose products are being advertised. But these reports do not reveal information
about any individual users. As was the case in Scenario 2, Busy's privacy
policies applies to these ads hosted by Clickads, so Busy uses the
EMBEDDED-INCLUDE
element in its policy reference file to indicate
that its P3P policy applies to embedded content served by clickads.example.com.
Optionally, clickads.example.com might also have a policy reference file
that declares that the busy.example.com privacy policy applies to these ads.
The companies whose products are being advertised need not be mentioned in
the Busy privacy policy because the only data they are receiving is aggregate
data.
Scenario 4: Web site busy.example.com also has a contract with funchat.example.com to host a chat room for its users. When users enter the chat room they are actually leaving the Busy site. However, the chat room has the Busy logo and is actually covered by the Busy privacy policy. In this instance Funchat is acting as an agent for Busy, but -- unlike the previous examples -- their content is not embedded in the Busy site. In this case, there is no way for Busy to include Funchat in its policy reference file. However, Busy should direct Funchat to place a policy reference file on its site that points to the Busy P3P policy.
Scenario 5: Web site bigsearch.example.com has a form that allows users to type in a search query and have it performed on their choice of search engines located on other sites. When a user clicks the "submit" button, the search query is actually submitted directly to these search engines -- the action URI is not on bigsearch.example.com but rather on the search engine selected by the user. Bigsearch cannot declare the privacy policies for these search engines because form actions are not embedded content. So when a user clicks the "submit" button, their user agent should go to the appropriate search engine and check its privacy policy before posting any data. In order to make this search choice mechanism work, Bigsearch might actually have a form with an action URI on its own site, which redirects to the appropriate search engine. In this case, the user agent should check the search engine privacy policy upon receiving the redirect response.
Scenario 6: Web site bigsearch.example.com also has a form that allows users to type in a search query and have it simultaneously performed on ten different search engines. Bigsearch submits the queries, gets back the results from each search engine, removes the duplicates, and presents the results to the user. In this case, the user interacts only with Bigsearch. Thus, the only P3P policy involved is the one that covers the Bigsearch web site. However, Bigsearch must disclose that it shares the users' search queries with third parties (the search web sites), unless Bigsearch has a contract with these search engines and they act as agents to Bigsearch.
Scenario 7: Web site bigsearch.example.com also has banner
advertisements provided by a company called adnetwork.example.com. Adnetwork
uses cookies to develop profiles of users across many different web sites
so that it can provide them with ads better suited to their interests. Because
the data about the sites that users are visiting is being used for purposes
other than just serving ads on the Bigsearch web site, Adnetwork cannot be
considered an agent in this context. Adnetwork must create its own P3P policy
and use its own policy reference file to indicate what content it applies
to. In addition, Bigsearch may optionally use the
EMBEDDED-INCLUDE
element in its policy reference file to indicate
that the Adnetwork P3P policy applies to these advertisements. Bigsearch
should only do this if Adnetwork has told it what P3P policy applies to these
advertisements and has agreed to notify Bigsearch if the policy reference
needs to be changed.
P3P policies are encoded in XML. They may also be represented using the RDF data model ([RDF]); however, an RDF representation is not included in this specification. (The working group plans to make this available as a W3C Note prior to submitting P3P as a Proposed Recommendation, together with a suitable RDF encoding of the policy reference file).
Section 3.1 begins with an example of an English language privacy policy
and a corresponding P3P policy. P3P policies include general assertions that
apply to the entire policy as well as specific assertions -- called
statements -- that apply only to the handling of particular types
of data referred to by data references. Section 3.2 describes the
POLICY
element and policy-level assertions. Section 3.3 describes
statements and data references.
The following are two examples of English-language privacy policy to be encoded as a P3P policy. Both policies are for one example company, CatalogExample, which has different policies for those browsing their site and those actually purchasing products. Example 3.1. is provided in both English and as a more formal description using P3P element and attribute names.
CatalogExample
4000 Lincoln Ave.
Birmingham, MI 48009 USA
E-mail: catalog@example.com
Telephone 248-EXAMPLE (248-392-6753)
Data retention:
We purge every two weeks the browsing information that we collect.
Here is Example 3.1 in a more formal description, using the P3P element and attribute names [with the section of the spec that was used cited in brackets for easy reference]:
CatalogExample
4000 Lincoln Ave.
Birmingham, MI 48009 USA
E-mail: catalog@example.com
Telephone +1 248-EXAMPLE (+1 248-392-6753)
If you choose to purchase an item we will ask you for more information including:
Also on this page we will give you the option to choose if you would like
to receive email, telephone calls or written service from CatalogExample
or from our carefully selected marketing partners who maintain similar privacy
practices. If you would like to receive these solicitations simply check
the appropriate boxes. You can choose to stop participating at any time simply
by changing your preferences.
Changing and Updating personal information
Consumers can change all of their personal account information by going to
the preferences section of CatalogExample at
http://catalog.example.com/preferences.html. You can change your address,
telephone number, e-mail address, password as well as your privacy
settings.
Cookies
CatalogExample uses cookies only to see if you have been an CatalogExample
customer in the past and, if so, customize services based on your past browsing
habits and purchases. We do not store any personal data in the cookie nor
do we share or sell the any of the information with other parties or
affiliates.
Data retention
We will keep the information about you and your purchases for as long as
you remain our customer. If you do not place an order from us for one year
we will remove your information from our databases.
The following pieces of [XML] capture the information as expressed in the above two examples. P3P policies are statements that are properly expressed as well-formed XML. The policy syntax will be explained in more detail in the sections that follow.
XML Encoding of Example 3.1:
<POLICY xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/10/18/P3Pv1" discuri="http://www.catalog.example.com/PrivacyPracticeBrowsing.html"> <ENTITY> <DATA-GROUP> <DATA ref="#business.name">CatalogExample</DATA> <DATA ref="#business.contact-info.postal.street">4000 Lincoln Ave.</DATA> <DATA ref="#business.contact-info.postal.city">Birmingham</DATA> <DATA ref="#business.contact-info.postal.stateprov">MI</DATA> <DATA ref="#business.contact-info.postal.postalcode">48009</DATA> <DATA ref="#business.contact-info.postal.country">USA</DATA> <DATA ref="#business.contact-info.online.email">catalog@example.com</DATA> <DATA ref="#business.contact-info.telecom.telephone.intcode">1</DATA> <DATA ref="#business.contact-info.telecom.telephone.loccode">248</DATA> <DATA ref="#business.contact-info.telecom.telephone.number">3926753</DATA> </DATA-GROUP> </ENTITY> <ACCESS><nonident/></ACCESS> <DISPUTES-GROUP> <DISPUTES resolution-type="independent" service="http://www.PrivacySeal.example.org" short-description="PrivacySeal.example.org"> <IMG src="http://www.PrivacySeal.example.org/Logo.gif" alt="PrivacySeal's logo"/> <REMEDIES><correct/></REMEDIES> </DISPUTES> </DISPUTES-GROUP> <STATEMENT> <PURPOSE><admin/><develop/></PURPOSE> <RECIPIENT><ours/></RECIPIENT> <RETENTION><stated-purpose/></RETENTION> <!-- Note also that the site's human-readable privacy policy MUST mention that data is purged every two weeks, or provide a link to this information. --> <DATA-GROUP> <DATA ref="#dynamic.clickstream"/> <DATA ref="#dynamic.http"/> </DATA-GROUP> </STATEMENT> </POLICY>
XML Encoding of Example 3.2:
<POLICY xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/10/18/P3Pv1" discuri="http://www.catalog.example.com/Privacy/PrivacyPracticeShopping.html" opturi="http://catalog.example.com/preferences.html"> <ENTITY> <DATA-GROUP> <DATA ref="#business.name">CatalogExample</DATA> <DATA ref="#business.contact-info.postal.street">4000 Lincoln Ave.</DATA> <DATA ref="#business.contact-info.postal.city">Birmingham</DATA> <DATA ref="#business.contact-info.postal.stateprov">MI</DATA> <DATA ref="#business.contact-info.postal.postalcode">48009</DATA> <DATA ref="#business.contact-info.postal.country">USA</DATA> <DATA ref="#business.contact-info.online.email">catalog@example.com</DATA> <DATA ref="#business.contact-info.telecom.telephone.intcode">1</DATA> <DATA ref="#business.contact-info.telecom.telephone.loccode">248</DATA> <DATA ref="#business.contact-info.telecom.telephone.number">3926753</DATA> </DATA-GROUP> </ENTITY> <ACCESS><contact_and_other/></ACCESS> <DISPUTES-GROUP> <DISPUTES resolution-type="independent" service="http://www.PrivacySeal.example.org" short-description="PrivacySeal.example.org"> <IMG src="http://www.PrivacySeal.example.org/Logo.gif" alt="PrivacySeal's logo"/> <REMEDIES><correct/></REMEDIES> </DISPUTES> </DISPUTES-GROUP> <STATEMENT> <CONSEQUENCE> We record some information in order to serve your request and to secure and improve our web site. </CONSEQUENCE> <PURPOSE><admin/><develop/></PURPOSE> <RECIPIENT><ours/></RECIPIENT> <RETENTION><stated-purpose/></RETENTION> <DATA-GROUP> <DATA ref="#dynamic.clickstream.server"/> <DATA ref="#dynamic.http.useragent"/> </DATA-GROUP> </STATEMENT> <STATEMENT> <CONSEQUENCE> We use this information when you make a purchase. </CONSEQUENCE> <PURPOSE><current/></PURPOSE> <RECIPIENT><ours/></RECIPIENT> <RETENTION><stated-purpose/></RETENTION> <DATA-GROUP> <DATA ref="#user.name"/> <DATA ref="#user.home-info.postal"/> <DATA ref="#user.home-info.telecom.telephone"/> <DATA ref="#user.business-info.postal"/> <DATA ref="#user.business-info.telecom.telephone"/> <DATA ref="#user.home-info.online.email"/> <DATA ref="#dynamic.miscdata"> <CATEGORIES><purchase/></CATEGORIES> </DATA> </DATA-GROUP> </STATEMENT> <STATEMENT> <CONSEQUENCE> At your request, we will send you carefully selected marketing solicitations that we think you will be interested in. </CONSEQUENCE> <PURPOSE> <contact required="opt_in"/> <customization required="opt_in"/> <tailoring required="opt_in"/> </PURPOSE> <RECIPIENT required="opt_in"><ours/><same/></RECIPIENT> <RETENTION><stated-purpose/></RETENTION> <DATA-GROUP> <DATA ref="#user.name" optional="yes"/> <DATA ref="#user.home-info.postal" optional="yes"/> <DATA ref="#user.home-info.telecom.telephone" optional="yes"/> <DATA ref="#user.business-info.postal" optional="yes"/> <DATA ref="#user.business-info.telecom.telephone" optional="yes"/> <DATA ref="#user.home-info.online.email" optional="yes"/> </DATA-GROUP> </STATEMENT> <STATEMENT> <CONSEQUENCE> We allow you to set a password so that you can access your own information. </CONSEQUENCE> <PURPOSE><customization required="opt_in"/></PURPOSE> <RECIPIENT><ours/></RECIPIENT> <RETENTION><stated-purpose/></RETENTION> <DATA-GROUP> <DATA ref="#dynamic.miscdata"> <CATEGORIES><uniqueid/></CATEGORIES> </DATA> </DATA-GROUP> </STATEMENT> <STATEMENT> <CONSEQUENCE> At your request, we will tailor our site and highlight products related to your interests. </CONSEQUENCE> <PURPOSE> <customization required="opt_in"/> <tailoring required="opt_in"/> </PURPOSE> <RECIPIENT><ours/></RECIPIENT> <RETENTION><stated-purpose/></RETENTION> <DATA-GROUP> <DATA ref="#user.bdate.ymd.year" optional="yes"/> <DATA ref="#user.gender" optional="yes"/> </DATA-GROUP> </STATEMENT> <STATEMENT> <CONSEQUENCE> We tailor our site based on your past visits. </CONSEQUENCE> <PURPOSE><tailoring/><develop/></PURPOSE> <RECIPIENT><ours/></RECIPIENT> <RETENTION><stated-purpose/></RETENTION> <DATA-GROUP> <DATA ref="#dynamic.cookies"> <CATEGORIES><state/></CATEGORIES> </DATA> <DATA ref="#dynamic.miscdata"> <CATEGORIES><preference/></CATEGORIES> </DATA> </DATA-GROUP> </STATEMENT> </POLICY>
This section defines the syntax and semantics of P3P policies. All policies MUST be encoded using [UTF-8]. P3P servers MUST encode their policies using this encoding. P3P user agents MUST be able to parse this syntax.
Policies can be placed stand-alone in a single file (using the
POLICY
element), or gathered together using the
POLICIES
element.
POLICIES
element
The POLICIES
element is used to gather several P3P policies
together in a single file. This is provided as a performance optimization:
many policies can be collected with a single request, improving network traffic
and caching. Even, the POLICIES
element can be placed in the
well-known location, inside the META
element: in this case,
user agents need only fetch a single file, containing both the policy reference
file and the policies.
Each policy included in a POLICIES
element MUST have a
name
attribute which is unique in the file. This allows policy
references (in POLICY-REF
elements) to link to that policy.
Example 3.3:
The file in http://www.example.com/Shop/policies.xml
could have
the following content:
<POLICIES xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/10/18/P3Pv1"> <POLICY discuri="http://www.example.com/disc1" name="policy1"> .... </POLICY> <POLICY discuri="http://www.example.com/disc2" name="policy2"> .... </POLICY> <POLICY discuri="http://www.example.com/disc3" name="policy3"> .... </POLICY> </POLICIES>
The files in http://www.example.com/Shop/CDs/*
could then be
associated to the second policy ("policy2
") using the following
policy reference file in http://www.example.com/w3c/p3p.xml
:
<META xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/10/18/P3Pv1"> <POLICY-REFERENCES> <POLICY-REF about="/Shop/policies#policy2"> <INCLUDE>/Shops/CDs/*</INCLUDE> </POLICY-REF> </POLICY-REFERENCES> </META>
[19] | policies |
= |
`<POLICIES xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/10/18/P3Pv1">` *policy "</POLICIES>" |
POLICY
element
The POLICY
element contains a complete P3P policy. Each P3P
policy MUST contain exactly one POLICY
element. The policy element
MUST contain an ENTITY
element that identifies the legal entity
making the representation of the privacy practices contained in the policy.
In addition, the policy element MUST contain an ACCESS
element,
and optionally STATEMENT
elements, a DISPUTES-GROUP
element, an EXPIRY
element
(indicating the expiration of the policy), a P3P
dataschema, and one or more extensions.
<POLICY>
discuri
(mandatory
attribute)
opturi
purpose
with required attribute set to
opt_in
or opt_out
.
name
POLICY
is included in a POLICIES
element.
[20] | policy |
= |
`<POLICY xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/10/18/P3Pv1" discuri=` quoted-URI [` opturi=` quoted-URI] [` name=` quotedstring] `>` *extension [expiry] [dataschema] entity access [disputes-group] *statement-block *extension `</POLICY>` |
[20] | quoted-URI |
= |
`"` URI `"` |
Here, URI is defined as per RFC 2396 [URI]. |
ENTITY
element
The ENTITY
element gives a precise description of the legal
entity making the representation of the privacy practices.
<ENTITY>
The ENTITY element contains a description of the legal entity consisting of DATA elements referencing (all or some of) the fields of the business dataset: it MUST contain both the legal entity's name as well as contact information such as postal address, telephone number, email address, or other information that individuals may use to contact the entity about their privacy policy. Note that some laws and codes of conduct require entities to include a postal address or other specific information in their contact information.
[21] | entity |
= |
"<ENTITY>" *extension entitydescription *extension "</ENTITY>" |
[21] | entitydescription |
= |
"<DATA-GROUP>" `<DATA ref="#business.name"/>` PCDATA "</DATA>" *(`<DATA ref="#business.` string `"/>` PCDATA "</DATA>") "</DATA-GROUP>" |
Here, string is defined as
a sequence of characters (with " and & escaped) among the values that
are allowed by the business dataset.
PCDATA is defined as in [XML]. |
ACCESS
element
The ACCESS
element indicates whether the site provides access
to various kinds of information.
<ACCESS>
<all/>
) is not meant to imply
that access to all data is possible, but that some of the data may be accessible
and that the user should communicate further with the service provider to
determine what capabilities they have.
Note that service providers may also wish to provide capabilities to access information collected through means other than the Web at the discuri. However, the scope of P3P statements are limited to data collected through HTTP or other Web transport protocols. Also, if access is provided through the Web, use of strong authentication and security mechanisms for such access is recommended; however, security issues are outside the scope of this document.
The ACCESS
element must contain one of the following elements:
<nonident/>
<all/>
<contact_and_other/>
<ident_contact/>
<other_ident/>
<none/>
[22] | access |
= |
"<ACCESS>" access_disclosure *extension "</ACCESS>" |
[23] | access-disclosure |
= |
"<nonident/>" | ; Identifiable Data is Not Used "<ident_contact/>" | ; Identifiable Contact Information "<other_ident/>" | ; Other Identifiable Information "<contact_and_other/>" | ; Identifiable and Other Contact Information "<all/>" | ; All Identifiable Information "<none/>" ; None |
DISPUTES
element
A policy SHOULD contain a DISPUTES-GROUP
element, which contains
one or more DISPUTES
elements. These elements describe dispute
resolution procedures that may be followed for disputes about a services'
privacy practices. Each DISPUTES
element can optionally contain
a LONG-DESCRIPTION
element, an IMG
element, and
a REMEDIES
element. Service providers with multiple dispute
resolution procedures should use a separate DISPUTES
element
for each. Since different dispute procedures have separate remedy processes,
each DISPUTES
element would need a separate
LONG-DESCRIPTION
, IMG
tag and REMEDIES
element, if they are being used.
<DISPUTES>
resolution-type
(mandatory
attribute)
[service]
[independent]
[court]
[law]
service
(mandatory
attribute)
verification
short-description
The DISPUTES
element can contain a LONG-DESCRIPTION
element, where a human readable description is present: this should contain
the name of the appropriate legal forum, applicable law, or third party
organization; or contact information for customer service if not already
provided at the service URI.
<LONG-DESCRIPTION>
<IMG>
src
(mandatory
attribute)
width
height
alt
(mandatory attribute)
[24] | disputes-group |
= |
"<DISPUTES-GROUP>" 1*dispute *extension "</DISPUTES-GROUP>" |
[25] | dispute |
= |
"<DISPUTES" " resolution-type=" '"'("service"|"independent"|"court"|"law")'"' " service=" quoted-URI [" verification=" quotedstring] [" short-description=" quotedstring] ">" *extension [longdescription] [image] [remedies] *extension "</DISPUTES>" |
[26] | longdescription |
= |
<LONG-DESCRIPTION> PCDATA </LONG-DESCRIPTION> |
[27] | image |
= |
"<IMG src=" quoted-URI [" width=" `"` number `"`] [" height=" `"` number `"`] " alt=" quotedstring "/>" |
[28] | quotedstring |
= |
`"` string `"` |
Here, string
is defined as a sequence of characters (with " and & escaped), and
PCDATA is defined as in [XML]. |
Note that there can be multiple assurance services, specified via multiple
occurrences of DISPUTES
within the DISPUTES-GROUP
element. These fields are expected to be used in a number of ways, including
representing that one's privacy practices are self assured, audited by a
third party, or under the jurisdiction of a regulatory authority.
REMEDIES
element
Each DISPUTES
element SHOULD contain a REMEDIES
element that specifies the possible remedies in case a policy breach
occurs.
<REMEDIES>
The REMEDIES
element must contain one or more of the following:
<correct/>
<money/>
<law/>
[29] | remedies |
= |
"<REMEDIES>" 1*remedy *extension "</REMEDIES>" |
[30] | remedy |
= |
"<correct/>" | "<money/>" | "<law/>" |
Statements describe data practices that are applied to particular types of data.
STATEMENT
element
The STATEMENT
element is a container that groups together a
PURPOSE
element, a RECIPIENT
element, a
RETENTION
element, a DATA-GROUP
element, and optionally
a CONSEQUENCE
element and one or more extensions. All of the
data referenced by the DATA-GROUP
is handled according to the
disclosures made in the other elements contained by the statement. Thus,
sites may group elements that are handled the same way and create a statement
for each group. Sites that would prefer to disclose separate purposes and
other information for each kind of data they collect can do so by creating
a separate statement for each data element.
<STATEMENT>
[31] | statement-block |
= |
"<STATEMENT>" *extension [consequence] [non-identifiable] purpose recipient retention 1*data-group *extension "</STATEMENT>" |
To simplify practice declaration, service providers may aggregate any of
the disclosures (purposes, recipients, and retention) within a statement
over data elements. Service providers MUST make such aggregations as an additive
operation. For instance, a site that distributes your age to
ours
(ourselves and our agents), but distributes your zip code
to unrelated
(unrelated third parties), MAY say they distribute
your name and zip code to ours
and unrelated
. Such
a statement appears to distribute more data than actually happens. It is
up to the service provider to determine if their disclosure deserves specificity
or brevity.
Also, one must always disclose all options that apply. Consider a site with
the sole purpose of collecting information for the purposes of
contact
(Contacting Visitors for Marketing of Services or Products).
Even though this is considered to be for the current
(Completion
and Support of Current Activity) purpose, the site must state both
contact
and current
purposes. Consider a site which
distributes information to ours
in order to redistribute it
to public
: the site must state both ours
and
public
recipients.
Service providers often aggregate data they collect. Sometimes this aggregate data may be used for different purposes than the original data, shared more widely than the original data, or retained longer than the original data. For example many sites publish or disclose to their advertisers statistics such as number of visitors to their web site, percentage of visitors who fit into various demographic groups, etc. When aggregate statistics are used or shared such that it would not be possible to derive data for individual people or households based on these statistics, no disclosures about these statistics are necessary in a P3P policy. However, services MUST disclose the fact that the original data is collected and declare any use that is made of the data before it is aggregated.
CONSEQUENCE
element
STATEMENT
elements may optionally contain a
CONSEQUENCE
element that can be shown to a human user to provide
further explanation about a site's practices.
<CONSEQUENCE>
[32] | consequence |
= |
"<CONSEQUENCE>" PCDATA "</CONSEQUENCE>" |
NON-IDENTIFIABLE
element
STATEMENT
elements may optionally contain a
NON-IDENTIFIABLE
element, only when the requirements specified
below are fulfilled.
<NON-IDENTIFIABLE/>
If the <NON-IDENTIFIABLE/>
element is present, a human
readable explanation of how this is achieved MUST be included at the
discuri .
[33] | non-identifiable |
= |
"<NON-IDENTIFIABLE/>" |
PURPOSE
element
Each STATEMENT
element MUST contain a PURPOSE
element
that contains one or more purposes of data collection or uses of data. Sites
MUST classify their data practices into one or more of the purposes specified
below.
<PURPOSE>
The PURPOSE
element MUST contain one or more of the following:
<current/>
<admin/>
<develop/>
<customization/>
<tailoring/>
<pseudo-analysis/>
<pseudo-decision/>
<individual-analysis/>
<individual-decision/>
<contact/>
<current/>
would be used. In addition, this does not include marketing
via customized web content or banner advertisements embedded in sites the
user is visiting -- these cases would be covered by the
<tailoring/>
,
<pseudo-analysis/>
and
<pseudo-decision/>
, or
<individual-analysis/>
and
<individual-decision/>
purposes.
<historical/>
<DISPUTES>
element and MUST include a specific definition
of the type of qualified researcher who can access the information, where
this information will be stored and specifically how this collection advances
the preseservation of history.
<telemarketing/>
<current/>
would be used.
<other-purpose>
string
</other-purpose>
Each type of purpose can have the following optional attribute:
required
always
: The purpose is always required; users
cannot opt-in or opt-out of this use of their data. This is the default when
no required
attribute is present.
opt_in
: Data may be used for this purpose
only when the user affirmatively requests this use -- for example, when a
user asks to be added to a mailing list. An affirmative request requires
users to take some action specifically to make the request. For example,
when users fill out a survey, checking an additional box to request to be
added to a mailing list would be considered an affirmative request. However,
submitting a survey form that contains a pre-checked mailing list request
box would not be considered an affirmative request. In addition, for any
purpose that users may affirmatively request, there must also be a way for
them to change their minds later and decline -- this MUST be specified at
the opturi
.
opt_out
: Data may be used for this purpose
unless the user requests that it not be used in this way. When this value
is selected, the service MUST provide clear instructions to users on how
to opt-out of this purpose at the
opturi
. Services SHOULD also provide these
instructions or a pointer to these instructions at the point of data collection.
[34] | purpose |
= |
"<PURPOSE>" 1*purposevalue *extension "</PURPOSE>" |
[35] | purposevalue |
= |
"<current" [required] "/>" | ; Completion and Support of Current Activity "<admin" [required] "/>" | ; Web Site and System Administration "<develop" [required] "/>" | ; Research and Development "<customization" [required] "/>" | ; Affirmative Customization "<tailoring" [required] "/>" | ; One-time Tailoring "<pseudo-analysis" [required] "/>" | ; Pseudonymous Analysis "<pseudo-decision" [required] "/>" | ; Pseudonymous Decision "<individual-analysis" [required] "/>" | ; Individual Analysis "<individual-decision" [required] "/>" | ; Individual Decision "<contact" [required] "/>" | ; Contacting Visitors for Marketing of Services or Products "<historical" [required] "/>" | ; Historical Preservation "<telemarketing" [required] "/>" | ; Telephone Marketing "<other-purpose" [required] ">" PCDATA "</other-purpose>"; Other Uses |
[36] | required |
= |
" required=" `"` ("always"|"opt_in"|"opt_out") `"` |
Service providers MUST use the above elements to explain the purpose of data
collection. Service providers MUST disclose all that apply. If a
service provider does not disclose that a data element will be used for a
given purpose, that is a representation that data will not be used for that
purpose. Service providers that disclose that they use data for
"other
" purposes MUST provide human readable explanations of
those purposes.
Service providers MUST disclose all the recipients that apply. P3P makes no distinctions about how that data is released to the recipient; it simply requires that if data is released, then that sharing must be disclosed in the P3P policy. Examples of disclosing data which MUST be covered by a P3P statement include:
Note that in some cases the above set of recipients may not completely describe all the recipients of data. For example, the issue of transaction facilitators, such as shipping or payment processors, who are necessary for the completion and support of the activity but may follow different practices was problematic. Currently, only delivery services can be explicitly represented in a policy. Other such transaction facilitators should be represented in whichever category most accurately reflects their practices with respect to the original service provider. A special element for delivery services is included, but not one for payment processors (such as banks or credit card companies) for the following reasons: Financial institutions will typically have separate agreements with their customers regarding the use of their financial data, while delivery recipients typically do not have an opportunity to review a delivery service's privacy policy.
Note, that the working group discussed at length the possibility of allowing sites to distinguish between purposes they may engage in and purposes they will engage in. The consensus of the working group was that such a distinction is not necessary. However, some members disagreed with this conclusion stating:
Yes, no and may all need to be response options in the vocabulary. If no and may are the only options, then the meaning of may is corrupted to equal yes. May should be an option that reflects its true meaning -- yes or no. If may by default means yes, because yes is not provided as a response option, the consumer will be misled. May should be used to imply that there are a set of rules underlying the term that consumers can refer to understand a privacy policy. If may means yes, the consumer is less likely to investigate via a click-through to the Web site's privacy policy. Potentially, this seemingly simple solution -- no and may -- will be a significant barrier to commerce as consumers are confused by the meaning of the truncated choices of only no and may. Those who argue that providing all three choices -- yes, may, no -- is an attempt by Web sites to mislead consumers are missing the point. In the arena of privacy protection, accuracy in stating a privacy policy is critical to building trust and confidence in the consumer about how information is used. In the interest of software simplicity, limiting consumer preference choices to no and may will do a disservice to the consumer -- and to the Web sites that are trying to communicate accurately with consumers about their policies.
RECIPIENT
element
Each STATEMENT
element MUST contain a RECIPIENT
element that contains one or more recipients of the collected data. Sites
MUST classify their recipients into one or more of the six recipients specified.
<RECIPIENT>
The RECIPIENT
element MUST contain one or more of the following:
<ours>
<delivery>
<same>
<other-recipient>
<unrelated>
<public>
Each of the above tags can optionally contain one or more
recipient-description
tags, containing a description of the
recipient, and, with the exception of <ours>
, a
required
tag (analogously to PURPOSE
s), indicating
whether opt-in/opt-out of sharing is available.
[37] | recipient |
= |
"<RECIPIENT>" 1*recipientvalue *extension "</RECIPIENT>" |
[38] | recipientvalue |
= |
"<ours>" *recdescr "</ours> | ; only ourselves and our agents "<same" [required] ">" *recdescr "</same>" | ; legal entities following our practices "<other-recipient" [required] ">" *recdescr "</other-recipient>" | ; legal entities following different practices "<delivery" [required] ">" *recdescr "</delivery>" | ; delivery services following different practices "<public" [required] ">" *recdescr "</public>" | ; public fora "<unrelated" [required] ">" *recdescr "</unrelated>" ; unrelated third parties |
[39] | recdescr |
= |
"<recipient-description>" PCDATA ; description of the recipient "</recipient-description>" |
Service providers MUST disclose all the recipients that apply. P3P makes no distinctions about how that data is released to the recipient; it simply requires that if data is released, then that sharing must be disclosed in the P3P policy. Examples of disclosing data which MUST be covered by a P3P statement include:
Note that in some cases the above set of recipients may not completely describe all the recipients of data. For example, the issue of transaction facilitators, such as shipping or payment processors, who are necessary for the completion and support of the activity but may follow different practices was problematic. Currently, only delivery services can be explicitly represented in a policy. Other such transaction facilitators should be represented in whichever category most accurately reflects their practices with respect to the original service provider.
Aspecial element for delivery services is included, but not one for payment processors (such as banks or credit card companies) for the following reasons: Financial institutions will typically have separate agreements with their customers regarding the use of their financial data, while delivery recipients typically do not have an opportunity to review a delivery service's privacy policy.
Note that the <delivery/>
element SHOULD NOT be used for
delivery services that agree to use data only on behalf of the service provider
for completion of the delivery.
RETENTION
element
Each STATEMENT
element MUST contain a RETENTION
element that indicates the kind of retention policy that applies to the data
referenced in that statement.
<RETENTION>
The RETENTION
element MUST contain one of the following:
<no-retention/>
<stated-purpose/>
<legal-requirement/>
<business-practices/>
<indefinitely/>
[40] | retention |
= |
"<RETENTION>" retentionvalue *extension "</RETENTION>" |
[41] | retentionvalue |
= |
"<no-retention/>" | ; not retained "<stated-purpose/>" | ; for the stated purpose "<legal-requirement/>" | ; stated purpose by law "<indefinitely/>" | ; indeterminated period of time "<business-practices/>" ; by business practices |
DATA-GROUP
and
DATA
elements
Each STATEMENT
element MUST contain at least one
DATA-GROUP
element that contains one or more DATA
elements. DATA
elements are used to describe the type of data
that a site collects.
<DATA-GROUP>
base
ref
attributes. When this attribute is omitted, the default
value is the URI of the P3P base data schema
(http://www.w3.org/TR/P3P/base).
When the attribute appears as an empty string (""), the base is the local
document.
<DATA>
ref
(mandatory attribute)
DATA
element is contained within a
DATA-GROUP
element, then the default base URI is assumed to
be the URI of the base
attribute. In the other cases, as usual,
the default base URI is a same-document reference
([URI]).user.home
is
different from USER.HOME
or User.Home
).
optional
optional
attribute is used only in policies (not in dataschema
definitions).
Note that user agents should be cautious about using the
optional
attribute in automated decision-making. If the
optional
attribute is associated with a data element directly
controlled by the user agent (such as the HTTP Referer
header
or cookies), the user agent should make sure that this data is not transmitted
to web sites at which a data element is optional if the site's policy would
not match a user's preferences if the data element was required. Likewise,
for data elements that users typically type into forms, user agents
should alert users when a site's practices about optional data do not match
their preferences.
DATA
elements can contain the actual data (as already seen in
the case of the ENTITY
element), and can contain related
category information.
[42] | data-group |
= |
"<DATA-GROUP" [" base=" quoted-URI] ">" 1*dataref *extension "</DATA-GROUP>" |
[43] | dataref |
= |
`<DATA" ref="` URI-reference `"` [" optional=" `"` ("yes"|"no") `"`] ">" [categories] ; the categories of the data element. [PCDATA] ; the eventual value of the data element "</DATA>" |
Here,
URI-reference is defined as in [URI]. |
For example, to reference the user's home address city, all the elements
of the data set user.business-info
and (optionally) all the
elements of the data set user.home-info.telecom
, the service
would send the following references inside a P3P policy:
<DATA-GROUP> <DATA ref="#user.home-info.city"/> <DATA ref="#user.home-info.telecom" optional="yes"/> <DATA ref="#user.business-info"/> </DATA-GROUP>
When the actual value of the data is known, it can be expressed inside the
DATA
element. For example, as seen in the
example policies:
<ENTITY> <DATA-GROUP> <DATA ref="#business.name">CatalogExample</DATA> <DATA ref="#business.contact-info.postal.street">4000 Lincoln Ave.</DATA> ...
Categories are elements inside data elements that provide hints to users and user agents as to the intended uses of the data. Categories are vital to making P3P user agents easier to implement and use. Note that categories are not data elements: they just allow users to express more generalized preferences and rules over the exchange of their data.
The following elements are used to denote data categories:
[44] | categories |
= |
"<CATEGORIES>" 1*category "</CATEGORIES>" |
[45] | category |
= |
"<physical/>" | ; Physical Contact Information "<online/>" | ; Online Contact Information "<uniqueid/>" | ; Unique Identifiers "<purchase/>" | ; Purchase Information "<financial/>" | ; Financial Information "<computer/>" | ; Computer Information "<navigation/>" | ; Navigation and Click-stream Data "<interactive/>" | ; Interactive Data "<demographic/>" | ; Demographic and Socioeconomic Data "<content/>" | ; Content "<state/>" | ; State Management Mechanisms "<political/>" | ; Political Information "<health/>" | ; Health Information "<preference/>" | ; Preference Data "<government/> | ; Government-issued Identifiers "<other>" PCDATA "</other>" ; Other |
<physical/>
<online/>
<uniqueid/>
<purchase/>
<financial/>
<computer/>
<navigation/>
<interactive/>
<demographic/>
<content/>
<state/>
<political/>
<health/>
<preference/>
<location/>
<government/>
<other>
string
</other>
<other>
and the
</other>
tags.)
The Computer, Navigation, Interactive and Content categories can be distinguished as follows. The Computer category includes information about the user's computer including IP address and software configuration. Navigation data describes actual user behavior related to browsing. When an IP address is stored in a log file with information related to browsing activity, both the Computer category and the Navigation category should be used. Interactive Data is data actively solicited to provide some useful service at a site beyond browsing. Content is information exchanged on a site for the purposes of communication.
The Other category should be used only when data is requested that does not fit into any other category.
P3P uses categories to give users and user agents additional hints as to what type of information is requested from a service. While most data in the Base Data Schema is in a known category (or a set of known categories), some data elements can be in a number of different categories, depending on the situation. The former are called fixed-category data elements (or "fixed data elements" for short), the latter variable-category data elements ("variable data elements"). Both types of elements are briefly described in the two sections below.
P3P provides a flexible and powerful mechanism to extend its syntax and semantics
using one element: EXTENSION
. This element is used to indicate
portions of the policy which belong to an extension. The meaning of the data
within the EXTENSION
element is defined by the extension itself.
<EXTENSION>
optional
optional
attribute a value of no
. A
mandatory extension to the P3P syntax means that applications that
do not understand this extension cannot understand the meaning of the whole
policy (or dataschema). An optional extension, indicated by giving
the optional attribute a value of yes
, means that applications
that do not understand this extension can safely ignore the contents of the
EXTENSION
element, and proceed to process the whole policy (or
dataschema) as usual. The optional
attribute is not required;
its default value is yes
.
[46] | extension |
= |
"<EXTENSION" [" optional=" `"` ("yes"|"no") `"`] ">" PCDATA "</EXTENSION>" |
For example, if www.catalog.example.com would like to add to P3P a feature to indicate that a certain set of data elements were only to be collected from users living in the United States, Canada, or Mexico, it could add a mandatory extension like this:
<DATA-GROUP> ... <EXTENSION> <COLLECTION-GEOGRAPHY type="include" xmlns="http://www.catalog.example.com/P3P/region"> <USA/><Canada/><Mexico/> </COLLECTION-GEOGRAPHY> </EXTENSION> </DATA-GROUP>
On the other hand, if www.catalog.example.com would like to add an extension stating what country the server is in, an optional extension might be more appropriate, such as the following:
<POLICY> <EXTENSION optional="yes"> <ORIGIN xmlns="http://www.catalog.example.com/P3P/origin" country="USA"/> </EXTENSION> ... </POLICY>
The xmlns
attribute is significant since it specifies the namespace
for interpreting the names of elements and attributes used in the extension.
Note that, as specified in [XML-Name], the namespace
URI is just intended to be a unique identifier for the XML entities used
by the extension. Nevertheless, service providers MAY provide a page with
a description of the extension at the corresponding URI.
APPEL ([APPEL]) is a privacy preferences exchange language that can be used to conveniently express an automatic set of behaviours that the user agent should take when processing a privacy policy. User agents MUST be able to process (in conformance with the [APPEL] specification) and import APPEL rules, and SHOULD be able to export APPEL rules. Note that these requirements do not necessarily imply that APPEL must be the only rule processing tool of the user agent, or that a user agent's power in dealing with policies must be limited to APPEL's expressivity.
P3P has the ability to define data schemas to provide a common way for services and user agents to refer to data elements. A data schema describes specific data elements, which may be grouped into hierarchical data sets.
In order to provide multilingual support for data schema files,
a server can supply the right alternative based on the HTTP
Accept-Language
header.
Services may declare and use data elements by creating a data schema and
referencing it in a policy using the DATA
element. P3P comes
with a standard data schema, the
P3P Base Data
Schema, that defines a wide variety of commonly used data
elements.
Data elements often come in groups with certain common elements: thus, P3P also allows structures to be defined. A structure is a collection of specified data elements. New structures can be defined, and P3P also provides built-in basic data structures, which can be conveniently reused by other new schemas.
The <DATASCHEMA>
element contains references to the new
data elements.
[47] | dataschema |
= |
"<DATASCHEMA" [` xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/10/18/P3Pv1"`] ">" *(datadef|datastruct|extension) "</DATASCHEMA>" |
Data schemas can be embedded in a policy, or expressed as a
stand-alone XML file. In the second case, the appropriate XML namespace
attribute xmlns
MUST be used to indicate this is a P3P data
schema file:
<DATASCHEMA xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/10/18/P3Pv1"> <DATA-STRUCT ... /> ... <DATA-DEF ... /> </DATASCHEMA>
DATA-DEF
and
DATA-STRUCT
elements
<DATA-DEF>
and
<DATA-STRUCT>
The following attributes are common to these two elements:
name
(mandatory attribute)
user.home
is different from
USER.HOME
or User.Home
. Furthermore, in names of
data elements and structures no number character can appear immediately following
a dot.
structref
structref
attribute (and, so, without an associated structure)
are called unstructured.
short-description
The DATA-DEF
and DATA-STRUCT
elements can also
contain a long description of the data element or structure, using the
LONG-DESCRIPTION
element.
[48] | datadef |
= |
"<DATA-DEF name=" quotedstring [` structref="` URI-reference `"`] [" short-description=" quotedstring] ">" [categories] ; the categories of the data element. [longdescription] ; the long description of the data element "</DATA-DEF>" |
[49] | datastruct |
= |
"<DATA-STRUCT name=" quotedstring [` structref="` URI-reference `"`] [" short-description=" quotedstring] ">" [categories] ; the categories of the Data Structure. [longdescription] ; the long description of the Data Structure "</DATA-STRUCT>" |
Here,
URI-reference is defined as in [URI]. |
Data elements can be structured, much like in common programming languages:
structures are hierarchical (tree-like) descriptions of data elements: this
hierarchical description is performed in the name
attribute
using a dot (".
") character as separator.
For example, the company HyperSpeedExample might want to describe the features
of a vehicle, using a structure called vehicle
that includes
features like a vehicle's model (vehicle.model
), color
(vehicle.color
), year of manifacture
(vehicle.built.year
), price (vehicle.price
).
If HyperspeedExample also wants to include in the definition of a vehicle
the location of manifacture, it could add other fields to the structure with
all the relevant data like country, street address, postal code, and so on.
But, each part of a structure can use other structures as well: structures
can be composed. In this case, the
P3P Base Data
Schema (which provides built-in definitions of widely used
structures and data elements) already provides a structure
postal
, describing all the postal information of a location.
So, the final definition of the structure vehicle is
vehicle.model
(unstructured)
vehicle.color
(unstructured)
vehicle.built.year
(unstructured)
vehicle.price
(unstructured)
vehicle.built.where
(with basic structure postal
)
The basic structure postal has descriptions of the form
postal.street
, postal.city
, and so on. Since we
have applied the structure postal to vehicle.built.where
, it
means that we can access the street and city of a vehicle using the descriptions
vehicle.built.where.street
and
vehicle.built.where.city
respectively. So, applying a structure
(in this case, postal
) means we can build very complex descriptions
in a modular way.
As said, structures do not contain data elements, they are just abstract
descriptions: we can use them to rapidly build structured collections of
data elements. Going on with the example, HyperSpeedExample needs this abstract
description of the features of a vehicle because it wants to actually exchange
data about cars and motorcycles. So, it could define two data elements called
car
and motorcycle
, both with the above structure
vehicle
.
This description of the data elements (actual data elements plus, if the case, the structures needed to describe them) is encoded in XML using a dataschema. In the HyperSpeedExample case, it would be something like:
<DATASCHEMA xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/10/18/P3Pv1"> <DATA-STRUCT name="vehicle.model" short-description="Model"> <CATEGORIES><preference/></CATEGORIES> </DATA-STRUCT> <DATA-STRUCT name="vehicle.color" short-description="Color"> <CATEGORIES><preference/></CATEGORIES> </DATA-STRUCT> <DATA-STRUCT name="vehicle.built.year" short-description="Construction Year"> <CATEGORIES><preference/></CATEGORIES> </DATA-STRUCT> <DATA-STRUCT name="vehicle.built.where" structref="http://www.w3.org/TR/P3P/base#postal" short-description="Construction Place"> <CATEGORIES><preference/></CATEGORIES> </DATA-STRUCT> <DATA-DEF name="car" structref="#vehicle"/> <DATA-DEF name="motorcycle" structref="#vehicle"/> </DATASCHEMA>
Continuing with the example, in order to reference a car model and construction year, Hyperspeed or any other service could send the following references inside a P3P policy:
<DATA-GROUP> <!-- First, the "car.model" data element, whose definition is in the data schema at http://www.HyperSpeed.example.com/models-schema --> <DATA ref="http://www.HyperSpeed.example.com/models-schema#car.model"/> <!-- And second, the "car.built.year" data element, whose definition is the data schema at http://www.HyperSpeed.example.com/models-schema --> <DATA ref="http://www.HyperSpeed.example.com/models-schema#car.built.year"/> </DATA-GROUP>
As structures can also carry category information, in the above references
both of the data elements are of category
<preference/>
, since this is the category specified in
the vehicle
structures for the attributes model
and vehicle
.
Using the base
attribute, the
above references can be written in an even more compact way:
<DATA-GROUP base="http://www.HyperSpeed.example.com/models-schema"> <DATA ref="#car.model"/> <DATA ref="#car.built.year"/> </DATA-GROUP>
Alternatively, the dataschema could be embedded directly into a policy file. In this case, the policy file could look like:
<POLICY xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/10/18/P3Pv1" ... >
<!-- Here the embedded dataschema begins -->
<DATASCHEMA>
<DATA-STRUCT name="vehicle.model"
short-description="Model">
<CATEGORIES><preference/></CATEGORIES>
</DATA-STRUCT>
<DATA-STRUCT name="vehicle.color"
short-description="Color">
<CATEGORIES><preference/></CATEGORIES>
</DATA-STRUCT>
<DATA-STRUCT name="vehicle.built.year"
short-description="Construction Year"">
<CATEGORIES><preference/></CATEGORIES>
</DATA-STRUCT>
<DATA-STRUCT name="vehicle.built.where"
structref="http://www.w3.org/TR/P3P/base#postal"
short-description="Construction Place">
<CATEGORIES><preference/></CATEGORIES>
</DATA-STRUCT>
<DATA-DEF name="car" structref="#vehicle"/>
<DATA-DEF name="motorcycle" structref="#vehicle"/>
</DATASCHEMA>
<!-- Now the policy begins -->
...
<DATA-GROUP base="">
<DATA ref="#car.model"/>
<DATA ref="#car.built.year"/>
</DATA-GROUP>
...
</POLICY>
Note that in any case there MUST NOT be more than one dataschema per file
(so, care should be taken when embedding a dataschema in a POLICY
contained in a POLICIES
element).
Data elements and structures can be classified according to whether or not
they are in some fixed category (using the category
element).
Schema designers can use this attribute within their schema definitions to
define an almost-invariable category for each element. Once defined, this
value cannot be changed when referencing such elements from within
user preferences and P3P policies, but it can be changed in other
schema definitions (in the vehicle example above we redefine as
preference
the category for the vehicle.built.where
structure, while the postal
structure, defined in the
Base Data Schema, has the
physical
and demographic
categories).
If the CATEGORIES
element is not present (so, leaving the category
undefined), it MUST be explicitly listed in each P3P policy referencing such
elements. Users can have different preferences depending on different category
values for the same element. And in the case of undefined categories within
data structures, other schema definitions can explicitly set categories
in derived elements (otherwise the original definition overrides any value
in the derived schema).
Note that the data element names specified in the base data schema or in extension data schemas may be used for purposes other than P3P policies. For example, web sites may use these names to label HTML form fields. By referring to data the same way in P3P policies and forms, automated form-filling tools can be better integrated with P3P user agents.
An essential requirement on dataschemas is the persistence of dataschemas: dataschemas that can be fetched at a certain URI can only be changed by extending the dataschema in a backward-compatible way (that is to say, changing the dataschema does not change the meaning of any policy using that schema). This way, the URI of a policy acts in a sense like a unique identifier for the data elements and structures contained therein: any dataschema that is not backward-compatible must therefore use a new different URI.
Note that a useful application of the persistence of dataschema is given
for example in the case of multi-lingual sites: multiple language versions
(translations) of the same dataschema can be offered by the server, using
the HTTP "Content-Language
" response header field to properly
indicate that a particular language has been used for the dataschema.
The Basic Data Structures are structures used by the P3P Base Data Schema (and possibly, due to their basic nature, they should be reused as much as possible by other different data schemas). All P3P-compliant user agent implementations MUST be aware of the Basic Data Structures. Each table below specifies the elements of a basic data structure, the categories associated, their structures, and the display names shown to users. More than one category may be associated with a fixed data element. However, each base data element is assigned to only one category whenever possible. Data schema designers are recommended to do the same.
The date structure specifies a date. Since date information can be used in different ways, depending on the context, all date information is tagged as being of "variable" category. Schema definitions have to explicitly set the corresponding category in the element referencing this data structure. For example, soliciting the birthday of a user might be "Demographic and Socioeconomic Data", while the expiration date of a credit card belongs to the "Purchase Information" category.
date |
Category | Structure | Short display name |
ymd.year | (variable-category) | unstructured | Year |
ymd.month | (variable-category) | unstructured | Month |
ymd.day | (variable-category) | unstructured | Day |
hms.hour | (variable-category) | unstructured | Hour |
hms.minute | (variable-category) | unstructured | Minute |
hms.second | (variable-category) | unstructured | Second |
fractionsecond | (variable-category) | unstructured | Fraction of Second |
timezone | (variable-category) | unstructured | Time Zone |
The "time zone" information is for example described in the time standard [ISO8601]. Note that "date.ymd" and "date.hms" can be used to fast reference the year/month/day and hour/minutes/seconds blocks respectively.
The personname structure specifies information about the naming of a person.
personname |
Category | Structure | Short display name |
prefix | Demographic and Socioeconomic Data | unstructured | Name Prefix |
given | Physical Contact Information | unstructured | Given Name (First Name) |
family | Physical Contact Information | unstructured | Family Name (Last Name) |
middle | Physical Contact Information | unstructured | Middle Name |
suffix | Demographic and Socioeconomic Data | unstructured | Name Suffix |
nickname | Demographic and Socioeconomic Data | unstructured | Nickname |
The certificate structure is used to specify identity certificates (like, for example, X.509).
certificate |
Category | Structure | Short display name |
key | Unique Identifiers | unstructured | Certificate Key |
format | Unique Identifiers | unstructured | Certificate Format |
The "format" field is used to represent the information of an IANA registered public key or authentication certificate format, while the "key" field is used to represent the corresponding certificate key.
The telephonenum structure specifies the characteristics of a telephone number.
telephonenum |
Category | Structure | Short display name |
intcode | Physical Contact Information | unstructured | International Telephone code |
loccode | Physical Contact Information | unstructured | Local Telephone Area code |
number | Physical Contact Information | unstructured | Telephone Number |
ext | Physical Contact Information | unstructured | Telephone Extension |
comment | Physical Contact Information | unstructured | Telephone Optional Comments |
The contact structure is used to specify contact information. Services can specify precisely which set of data they need, postal, telecommunication, or online address information.
contact |
Category | Structure | Short display name |
postal | Physical Contact Information, Demographic and Socioeconomic Data | postal | Postal Address Information |
telecom | Physical Contact Information | telecom | Telecommunications Information |
online | Online Contact Information | online | Online Address Information |
The postal structure specifies a postal mailing address.
postal |
Category | Structure | Short display name |
name | Physical Contact Information, Demographic and Socioeconomic Data | personname | Name |
street | Physical Contact Information | unstructured | Street Address |
city | Physical Contact Information | unstructured | City |
stateprov | Physical Contact Information | unstructured | State or Province |
postalcode | Demographic and Socioeconomic Data | unstructured | Postal code |
country | Demographic and Socioeconomic Data | unstructured | Country Name |
organization | Physical Contact Information, Demographic and Socioeconomic Data | unstructured | Organization Name |
The "country" field represents the information of the name of the country (for example, one among the countries listed in [ISO3166]).
The telecom structure specifies telecommunication information about a person.
telecom |
Category | Structure | Short display name |
telephone | Physical Contact Information | telephonenum | Telephone number |
fax | Physical Contact Information | telephonenum | Fax number |
mobile | Physical Contact Information | telephonenum | Mobile Telephone number |
pager | Physical Contact Information | telephonenum | Pager number |
The online structure specifies online information about a person.
online |
Category | Structure | Short display name |
Online Contact Information | unstructured | Email Address | |
uri | Online Contact Information | unstructured | Home Page Address |
Two structures used for representing forms of Internet addresses are provided.
The uri
structure covers Universal Resource Identifiers (URI),
which are defined in more detail in [URI]. The
ipaddr
structure represents IP addresses and Domain Name System
(DNS) hostnames.
uri |
Category | Structure | Short display name |
authority | (variable-category) | unstructured | URI authority |
stem | (variable-category) | unstructured | URI stem |
querystring | (variable-category) | unstructured | Query-string portion of URI |
The authority of a URI is defined as the authority
component
in [URI]. The stem of a URI is defined as the
information contained in the portion of the URI up to (and including) the
first '?' character in the URI, and the querystring is the information contained
in the portion of the URI after the first '?' character. For URIs which do
not contain a '?' character, the stem is the entire URI, and the querystring
is empty.
Since URI information can be used in different ways, depending on the context,
all the fields in the uri
structure are tagged as being of
"variable" category. Schema definitions MUST explicitly set the corresponding
category in the element referencing this data structure.
The ipaddr
structure represents the hostname and IP address
of a system.
ipaddr |
Category | Structure | Short display name |
hostname | Unique Identifiers | unstructured | Complete host and domain name |
partialhostname | Demographic | unstructured | Partial hostname |
fullip | Unique Identifiers | unstructured | Full IP address |
partialip | Demographic | unstructured | Partial IP address |
The hostname
element is used to represent collection of either
the simple hostname of a system, or the full hostname including domain name.
The partialhostname
element represents the information of a
fully-qualified hostname which has had at least the host portion
removed from the hostname. In other words, everything up to the first '.'
in the fully-qualified hostname MUST be removed for an address to quality
as a "partial hostname".
The fullip
element represents the information of a full IP version
4 or IP version 6 address. The partialip
element represents
an IP version 4 address (only - not a version 6 address) which has had at
least the last 7 bits of information removed. This removal MUST be done
by replacing those bits with a fixed pattern for all visitors (for example,
all 0's or all 1's).
Certain Web sites are known to make use not of the visitor's entire IP address or hostname, but rather make use of a reduced form of that information. By collecting only a subset of the address information, the site visitor is given some measure of anonymity. It is certainly not the intent of this specification to claim that these "stripped" IP addresses or hostnames are impossible to associate with an individual user, but rather that it is significantly more difficult to do so. Sites which perform this data reduction MAY wish to declare this practice in order to more-accurately reflect their practices.
The loginfo
structure is used to represent information typically
stored in Web-server access logs.
loginfo |
Category | Structure | Short display name |
uri | Navigation and click-stream data | uri | URI of requested resource |
timestamp | Navigation and click-stream data | date | Request timestamp |
clientip | Computer Information | ipaddr | Client's IP address or hostname |
other.httpmethod | Navigation and click-stream data | unstructured | HTTP request method |
other.bytes | Navigation and click-stream data | unstructured | Data bytes in response |
other.statuscode | Navigation and click-stream data | unstructured | Response status code |
The resource in the HTTP request is captured by the uri
field.
The time at which the server processes the request is represented by the
timestamp
field. Server implementations are free to define this
field as the time the request was received, the time that the server began
sending the response, the time that sending the response was complete, or
some other convient representation of the time the request was processed.
The IP address of the client system making the request is given by the
clientip
field.
The other
data fields represent other information commonly stored
in Web server access logs. other.httpmethod
is the HTTP method
(such as GET
, POST
, etc) in the client's request.
other.bytes
indicates the number of bytes in the response-body
sent by the server. other.statuscode
is the HTTP status code
on the request, such as 200, 302, or 404 (see section 6.1.1 of
[HTTP1.1] for details).
The httpinfo
structure represents information carried by the
HTTP protocol which is not covered by the loginfo
structure.
httpinfo |
Category | Structure | Short display name |
referer | Navigation and click-stream data | uri | Last URI requested by the user |
useragent | Computer Information | unstructured | User agent information |
The useragent
field represents the information in the HTTP
User-Agent
header (which gives information about the type and
version of the user's Web browser), and/or the HTTP accept
*
headers.
The referer
field represents the information in the HTTP
Referer
header, which gives information about the previous page
visited by the user. Note that this field is misspelled in exactly the same
way as the corresponding HTTP header.
All P3P-compliant user agent implementations MUST be aware of the data elements
in the P3P Base Data Schema. The P3P Base Data Schema includes the definition
of the basic data structures, and four data element sets:
user
,
thirdparty
,
business
and
dynamic
. The user
,
thirdparty
and business
sets include elements that
users and/or businesses might provide values for, while the
dynamic
set includes elements that are dynamically generated
in the course of a user's browsing session. User agents may support a variety
of mechanisms that allow users to provide values for the elements in the
user
set and store them in a data repository, including mechanisms
that support multiple personae. Users may choose not to provide values for
these data elements.
The formal XML definition of the P3P Base Data Schema is given in Appendix 3. In the following sections, the base data elements and sets are explained one by one. The members of this Working Group expect that in the future, there will be demand for the creation of other data sets and elements. Obvious applications include catalogue, payment, and agent/system attribute schemas (an extensive set of system elements is provided for example in http://www.w3.org/TR/NOTE-agent-attributes.)
Each table below specifies a set, the elements within the set, the category associated with the element, its structure, and the display name shown to users. More than one category may be associated with a fixed data element. However, each base data element is assigned to only one category whenever possible. It is recommended that data schema designers do the same.
The user
data set includes general information
about the user.
user |
Category | Structure | Short display name |
name | Physical Contact Information, Demographic and Socioeconomic Data | personname | User's Name |
bdate | Demographic and Socioeconomic Data | date | User's Birth Date |
cert | Unique Identifiers | certificate | User's Identity Certificate |
gender | Demographic and Socioeconomic Data | unstructured | User's Gender (male or female) |
employer | Demographic and Socioeconomic Data | unstructured | User's Employer |
department | Demographic and Socioeconomic Data | unstructured | Department or division of organization where user is employed |
jobtitle | Demographic and Socioeconomic Data | unstructured | User's Job Title |
home-info | Physical Contact Information, Online Contact Information, Demographic and Socioeconomic Data | contact | User's Home Contact Information |
business-info | Physical Contact Information, Online Contact Information, Demographic and Socioeconomic Data | contact | User's Business Contact Information |
Note, that this data set includes elements that are actually sets of data
themselves. These sets are defined in the Data
Structures subsection of this document. The short display name for an
individual element contained within a data set is defined as the concatenation
of the short display names that have been defined for the set and the element,
separated by a separator appropriate for the language/script in question,
e.g. a comma for English. For example, the short display name for
user.home.postal.postalcode
could be "User's Home Contact
Information, Postal Address Information, Postal code". User agent implementations
may prefer to develop their own short display names rather than using the
concatenated names when displaying information for the user.
The thirdparty
data set allows users and businesses
to provide values for a related third party. This can be useful whenever
third party information needs to be exchanged, for example when ordering
a present online that should be sent to another person, or when providing
information about one's spouse or business partner. Such information could
be stored in a user repository alongside with the user
data
set. User agents may offer to store multiple such thirdparty
data sets and allow users to select the appropriate values from a list when
necessary.
The thirdparty
data set is identical with the user
data set. See section 4.4.1 User Data for details.
The business
data set features a subset of
user
data relevant for organizations. In P3P 1.0, this data
set is primarily used for declaring the policy entity, though it should also
be applicable to business-to-business interactions.
business |
Category | Structure | Short display name |
name | Demographic and Socioeconomic Data | unstructured | Organization Name |
department | Demographic and Socioeconomic Data | unstructured | Department or division of organization |
cert | Unique Identifiers | certificate | Organizantion Identity Certificate |
contact-info | Physical Contact Information, Online Contact Information, Demographic and Socioeconomic Data | contact | Contact Information for the Organization |
In some cases, there is a need to specify data elements that do not have
fixed values that a user might type in or store in a repository. In the P3P
Base Data Schema, all such elements are grouped under the
dynamic
data set. Sites may refer to the types of data they
collect using the dynamic data set only, rather than enumerating all of the
specific data elements.
dynamic |
Category | Structure | Short display name |
clickstream | Navigation and Click-stream Data, Computer Information | loginfo | Click-stream information |
http | Navigation and Click-stream Data, Computer Information | httpinfo | HTTP protocol information |
clientevents | Navigation and Click-stream Data | unstructured | User's interaction with a resource |
cookies | (variable-category) | unstructured | Use of HTTP cookies |
miscdata | (variable-category) | unstructured | Miscellaneous non-base data schema information |
searchtext | Interactive Data | unstructured | Search terms |
interactionrecord | Interactive Data | unstructured | Server stores the transaction history |
These elements are often implicit in navigation or Web interactions. They should be used with categories to describe the type of information collected through these methods. A brief description of each element follows.
clickstream
clickstream
element is expected to apply to practically
all Web sites. It represents the combination of information typically found
in Web server access logs: the IP address or hostname of the user's computer,
the URI of the resource requested, the time the request was made, the HTTP
method used in the request, the size of the response, and the HTTP status
code in the response. Web sites that collect standard server access logs
can use this data element to describe how that data will be used, as well
as this element sites which do URI path analysis. Web sites that collect
only some of the data elements listed for the clickstream
element
MAY choose to list those specific elements rather than the entire
dynamic.clickstream
element. This allows sites with more limited
data-collection practices to accurately present those practices to their
visitors.
http
http
element contains additional information contained in
the HTTP protocol. See the definition of the httpinfo
structure
for descriptions of specific elements. Sites MAY use the
dynamic.http
field as a shorthand to cover all the elements
in the httpinfo
structure if they wish, or they MAY reference
the specific elements in the httpinfo
structure.
clientevents
clientevents
element represents data about how the user
interacts with their Web browser while interacting with a resource. For example,
an application may wish to collect information about whether the user moved
their mouse over a certain image on a page, or whether the user ever brought
up the help window in a Java applet. This kind of information is represented
by the dynamic.clientevents data element. Much of this interaction record
is represented by the events and data defined by the Document Object Model
(DOM) Level 2 Events [DOM2-Events]. The
clientevents
data element also covers any other data regarding
the user's interaction with their browser while the browser is displaying
a resource. The exception is events which are covered by other elements in
the base data schema. For example, requesting a page by clicking on a link
is part of the user's interaction with their browser while viewing a page,
but merely collecting the URL the user has clicked on does not require declaring
this data element; clickstream
covers that event. However, the
DOM event DOMFocusIn
(representing the user moving their mouse
over an object on a page) is not covered by any other existing element, so
if a site is collecting the occurrance of this event, then it needs to state
that it collects the dynamic.clientevents element. Items covered by this
data element are typically collected by client-side scripting languages,
such as JavaScript, or by client-side applets, such as ActiveX or Java applets.
Note that while the previous discussion has been in terms of a user viewing
a resource, this data element also applies to Web applications which do not
display resources visually - for example, audio-based Web browsers.
cookies
cookies
element should be used whenever HTTP cookies are
set or retrieved by a site. Please note that cookies
is a
variable data element and requires the explicit declaration of usage
categories in a policy.
miscdata
miscdata
element references information collected by the
service that the service does not reference using a specific data element.
Categories have to be used to better describe these data: sites MUST reference
a separate miscdata
element in their policies for each category
of miscellaneous data they collect.
searchtext
searchtext
element references a specific type of solicitation
used for searching and indexing sites. For example, if the only fields on
a search engine page are search fields, the site only needs to disclose that
data element.
interactionrecord
interactionrecord
element should be used if the server is
keeping track of the interaction it has with the user (i.e. information other
than clickstream data, for example account transactions, etc).
Most of the elements in the base data schema are so called "fixed" data elements: they belong to one or at most two category classes. By assigning a category invariably to elements or structures in the base data schema, services and users are able to refer to entire groups of elements simply by referencing the corresponding category. For example, using [APPEL], the privacy preferences exchange language, users can write rules that warn them when they visit a site that collects any data element in a certain category.
When creating data schemas for fixed data elements, schema creators have to explicitly enumerate the categories that these element belong to. For example:
<DATA-STRUCT name="postal.street" structref="#text"
short-description="Street Address">
<CATEGORIES><physical/></CATEGORIES>
</DATA-STRUCT>
If an element or structure belongs to multiple categories, multiple elements referencing the appropriate categories can be used. For example, the following piece of XML can be used to declare that the data elements in user.name have both category "physical" and "demographic":
<DATA-STRUCT name="user.name" structref="#personname"
short-description="User's Name">
<CATEGORIES><physical/><demographic/></CATEGORIES>
</DATA-STRUCT>
Please note that the category classes of fixed data elements/structures can not be overridden, for example by writing rules or policies that assign a different category to a known fixed base data element. User Agents MUST ignore such categories and instead use the original category (or set of categories) listed in the schema definition. User Agents MAY preferably alert the user that a fixed data element is used together with a non-standard category class.
Not all data elements/structures in the base data schema belong to a pre-determined category class. Some can contain information from a range of categories, depending on a particular situation. Such elements/structures are called variable-category data elements/structures (or "variable data element/structure" for short). Although most variable data elements in the P3P Base Data Schema are combined in the dynamic element set, they can appear in any data set, even mixed with fixed-category data elements.
When creating a schema definition for such elements and/or structures, schema authors MUST NOT list an explicit category attribute, otherwise the element/structure becomes fixed. For example when specifying the "Year" Data Structure, which can take various categories depending on the situation (e.g. when used for a credit card expiration date vs. for a birth date), the following schema definition can be used:
<DATA-STRUCT name="date.ymd.year"
short-description="Year"/> <!-- Variable Data Structure-->
This allows new schema extensions that reference such variable-category Data Structures to assign a specific category to derived elements, depending on their usage in that extension. For example, an e-commerce schema extension could thus define a credit card expiration date as follows:
<DATA-STRUCT name="Card.ExpDate" structref="#date.ymd"
short-description="Card Expiration Date">
<CATEGORIES><purchase/></CATEGORIES>
</DATA-STRUCT>
Under these conditions, the variable Data Structure date is assigned a fixed category "Purchase Information" when being used for specifying a credit card expiration date.
Note that while user preferences can list such variable data elements without
any additional category information (effectively expressing preferences over
any usage of this element), services MUST always explicitly specify
the categories that apply to the usage of a variable data element in their
particular policy. This information has to appear as a category element in
the corresponding DATA
element listed in the policy, for example
as in:
<POLICY ... >
...
<DATA ref="#dynamic.cookies"><CATEGORIES><uniqueid/></CATEGORIES></DATA>
...
</POLICY>
where a service declares that cookies are used for identifying the user at this site (i.e. category Unique Identifiers).
If a service wants to declare a data element that is in multiple categories, it simply declares the corresponding categories (as shown in the above section):
<POLICY ... >
...
<DATA ref="#dynamic.cookies"><CATEGORIES><uniqueid/><preference/></CATEGORIES></DATA>
...
</POLICY>
With the above declaration a service announces that it uses cookies both for identifying the user at this site and for storing user preference data. Note that for the purpose of P3P there is no difference whether this information is stored in two separate cookies or in a single one.
Finally, note that categories can be inherited as well: Categories inherit downward when a field is structured, but only into fields which have no predefined category. Therefore, we suggest to schema authors that they do their best to insure that all applicable categories are applied to new data elements they create.
P3P offers Web sites a great deal of flexibility in how they describe the types of data they collect.
Any of these three methods may be combined within a single policy.
By using the dynamic.miscdata
element, sites
can specify the types of data they collect without having to enumerate every
individual data element. This may be convenient for sites that collect a
lot of data or sites belonging to large organizations that want to offer
a single P3P policy covering the entire organization. However, the disadvantage
of this approach is that user agents will have to assume that the site might
collect any data element belonging to the categories referenced by the site.
So, for example, if a site's policy states that it collects
dynamic.miscdata
of the physical contact
information category, but the only physical contact information it collects
is business address, user agents will none-the-less assume that the site
might also collect telephone numbers. If the site wishes to be clear that
it does not collect telephone numbers or any other physical contact information
other than business address, than it should disclose that it collects
user.business-info.contact.postal
. Furthermore,
as user agents are developed with automatic form-filling capabilities, it
is likely that sites that enumerate the data they collect will be able to
better integrate with these tools.
By defining new data schemas, sites can precisely specify the data they collect beyond the base data set. However, if user agents are unfamiliar with the elements defined in these schemas, they will be able to provide only minimal information to the user about these new elements. The information they provide will be based on the category and display names specified for each element.
Regardless of whether a site wishes to make general or specific data disclosures,
there are additional advantages to disclosing specific elements from the
dynamic
data set. For example, by disclosing
dynamic.cookies
a site can indicate that it
uses cookies and explain the purpose of this use. User agent implementations
that offer users cookie control interfaces based on this information are
encouraged. Likewise, user agents that by default do not send the HTTP_REFERER
header, might look for the
dynamic.http.referer
element in P3P policies
and send the header if it will be used for a purpose the user finds acceptable.
The data schema corresponding to the P3P base data schema follows for easy reference. The schema is also present as a separate file at the URI http://www.w3.org/TR/P3P/base .
<DATASCHEMA xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/10/18/P3Pv1"> <!-- ********** Base Data Structures ********** --> <!-- "date" Data Structure --> <DATA-STRUCT name="date.ymd.year" short-description="Year"/> <DATA-STRUCT name="date.ymd.month" short-description="Month"/> <DATA-STRUCT name="date.ymd.day" short-description="Day"/> <DATA-STRUCT name="date.hms.hour" short-description="Hour"/> <DATA-STRUCT name="date.hms.minute" short-description="Minutes"/> <DATA-STRUCT name="date.hms.second" short-description="Second"/> <DATA-STRUCT name="date.fractionsecond" short-description="Fraction of Second"/> <DATA-STRUCT name="date.timezone" short-description="Time Zone"/> <!-- "personname" Data Structure --> <DATA-STRUCT name="personname.prefix" short-description="Name Prefix"> <CATEGORIES><demographic/></CATEGORIES> </DATA-STRUCT> <DATA-STRUCT name="personname.given" short-description="Given Name (First Name)"> <CATEGORIES><physical/></CATEGORIES> </DATA-STRUCT> <DATA-STRUCT name="personname.middle" short-description="Middle Name"> <CATEGORIES><physical/></CATEGORIES> </DATA-STRUCT> <DATA-STRUCT name="personname.family" short-description="Family Name (Last Name)"> <CATEGORIES><physical/></CATEGORIES> </DATA-STRUCT> <DATA-STRUCT name="personname.suffix" short-description="Name Suffix"> <CATEGORIES><demographic/></CATEGORIES> </DATA-STRUCT> <DATA-STRUCT name="personname.nickname" short-description="Nickname"> <CATEGORIES><demographic/></CATEGORIES> </DATA-STRUCT> <!-- "certificate" Data Structure --> <DATA-STRUCT name="certificate.key" short-description="Certificate key"> <CATEGORIES><uniqueid/></CATEGORIES> </DATA-STRUCT> <DATA-STRUCT name="certificate.format" short-description="Certificate format"> <CATEGORIES><uniqueid/></CATEGORIES> </DATA-STRUCT> <!-- "telephonenum" Data Structure --> <DATA-STRUCT name="telephonenum.intcode" short-description="International Telephone Code"> <CATEGORIES><physical/></CATEGORIES> </DATA-STRUCT> <DATA-STRUCT name="telephonenum.loccode" short-description="Local Telephone Area Code"> <CATEGORIES><physical/></CATEGORIES> </DATA-STRUCT> <DATA-STRUCT name="telephonenum.number" short-description="Telephone Number"> <CATEGORIES><physical/></CATEGORIES> </DATA-STRUCT> <DATA-STRUCT name="telephonenum.ext" short-description="Telephone Extension"> <CATEGORIES><physical/></CATEGORIES> </DATA-STRUCT> <DATA-STRUCT name="telephonenum.comment" short-description="Telephone Optional Comments"> <CATEGORIES><physical/></CATEGORIES> </DATA-STRUCT> <!-- "postal" Data Structure --> <DATA-STRUCT name="postal.name" struct-ref="#personname"> <CATEGORIES><physical/><demographic/></CATEGORIES> </DATA-STRUCT> <DATA-STRUCT name="postal.street" short-description="Street Address"> <CATEGORIES><physical/></CATEGORIES> </DATA-STRUCT> <DATA-STRUCT name="postal.city" short-description="City"> <CATEGORIES><physical/></CATEGORIES> </DATA-STRUCT> <DATA-STRUCT name="postal.stateprov" short-description="State or Province"> <CATEGORIES><physical/></CATEGORIES> </DATA-STRUCT> <DATA-STRUCT name="postal.postalcode" short-description="Postal Code"> <CATEGORIES><demographic/></CATEGORIES> </DATA-STRUCT> <DATA-STRUCT name="postal.organization" short-description="Organization Name"> <CATEGORIES><physical/><demographic/></CATEGORIES> </DATA-STRUCT> <DATA-STRUCT name="postal.country" short-description="Country Name"> <CATEGORIES><demographic/></CATEGORIES> </DATA-STRUCT> <!-- "telecom" Data Structure --> <DATA-STRUCT name="telecom.telephone" short-description="Telephone Number" structref="#telephonenum"> <CATEGORIES><physical/></CATEGORIES> </DATA-STRUCT> <DATA-STRUCT name="telecom.fax" short-description="Fax Number" structref="#telephonenum"> <CATEGORIES><physical/></CATEGORIES> </DATA-STRUCT> <DATA-STRUCT name="telecom.mobile" short-description="Mobile Telephone Number" structref="#telephonenum"> <CATEGORIES><physical/></CATEGORIES> </DATA-STRUCT> <DATA-STRUCT name="telecom.pager" short-description="Pager Number" structref="#telephonenum"> <CATEGORIES><physical/></CATEGORIES> </DATA-STRUCT> <!-- "online" Data Structure --> <DATA-STRUCT name="online.email" short-description="Email Address"> <CATEGORIES><online/></CATEGORIES> </DATA-STRUCT> <DATA-STRUCT name="online.uri" short-description="Home Page Address"> <CATEGORIES><online/></CATEGORIES> </DATA-STRUCT> <!-- "contact" Data Structure --> <DATA-STRUCT name="contact.postal" short-description="Postal Address Information" structref="#postal"> <CATEGORIES><physical/><demographic/></CATEGORIES> </DATA-STRUCT> <DATA-STRUCT name="contact.telecom" short-description="Telecommunications Information" structref="#telecom"> <CATEGORIES><physical/></CATEGORIES> </DATA-STRUCT> <DATA-STRUCT name="contact.online" short-description="Online Address Information" structref="#online"> <CATEGORIES><online/></CATEGORIES> </DATA-STRUCT> <!-- "uri" Data Structure --> <DATA-STRUCT name="uri.authority" short-description="URI authority"/> <DATA-STRUCT name="uri.stem" short-description="URI stem"/> <DATA-STRUCT name="uri.querystring" short-description="Query-string portion of URI"/> <!-- "ipaddr" Data Structure --> <DATA-STRUCT name="ipaddr.hostname" short-description="Complete host and domain name"> <CATEGORIES><uniqueid/></CATEGORIES> </DATA-STRUCT> <DATA-STRUCT name="ipaddr.partialhostname" short-description="Partial hostname"> <CATEGORIES><demographic/></CATEGORIES> </DATA-STRUCT> <DATA-STRUCT name="ipaddr.fullip" short-description="Full IP address"> <CATEGORIES><uniqueid/></CATEGORIES> </DATA-STRUCT> <DATA-STRUCT name="ipaddr.partialip" short-description="Partial IP address"> <CATEGORIES><demographic/></CATEGORIES> </DATA-STRUCT> <!-- "loginfo" Data Structure --> <DATA-STRUCT name="loginfo.uri" short-description="URI of requested resource" structref="#uri"> <CATEGORIES><navigation/></CATEGORIES> </DATA-STRUCT> <DATA-STRUCT name="loginfo.timestamp" short-description="Request timestamp" structref="#date"> <CATEGORIES><navigation/></CATEGORIES> </DATA-STRUCT> <DATA-STRUCT name="loginfo.clientip" short-description="Client's IP address or hostname" structref="#ipaddr"> <CATEGORIES><computer/></CATEGORIES> </DATA-STRUCT> <DATA-STRUCT name="loginfo.other.httpmethod" short-description="HTTP request method"> <CATEGORIES><navigation/></CATEGORIES> </DATA-STRUCT> <DATA-STRUCT name="loginfo.other.bytes" short-description="Data bytes in response"> <CATEGORIES><navigation/></CATEGORIES> </DATA-STRUCT> <DATA-STRUCT name="loginfo.other.statuscode" short-description="Response status code"> <CATEGORIES><navigation/></CATEGORIES> </DATA-STRUCT> <!-- "httpinfo" Data Structure --> <DATA-STRUCT name="httpinfo.referer" short-description="Last URI requested by the user" structref="#uri"> <CATEGORIES><navigation/></CATEGORIES> </DATA-STRUCT> <DATA-STRUCT name="httpinfo.useragent" short-description="User agent information"> <CATEGORIES><computer/></CATEGORIES> </DATA-STRUCT> <!-- ********** Base Data Schemas ********** --> <!-- "dynamic" Data Schema --> <DATA-DEF name="dynamic.clickstream" short-description="Click-stream information" structref="#loginfo"> <CATEGORIES><navigation/><computer/></CATEGORIES> </DATA-DEF> <DATA-DEF name="dynamic.http" short-description="HTTP protocol information" structref="#httpinfo"> <CATEGORIES><navigation/><computer/></CATEGORIES> </DATA-DEF> <DATA-DEF name="dynamic.clientevents" short-description="User's interaction with a resource"> <CATEGORIES><navigation/></CATEGORIES> </DATA-DEF> <DATA-DEF name="dynamic.cookies" short-description="Use of HTTP cookies"/> <DATA-DEF name="dynamic.miscdata" short-description="Miscellaneous non-base data schema information"/> <DATA-DEF name="dynamic.searchtext" short-description="Search terms"> <CATEGORIES><interactive/></CATEGORIES> </DATA-DEF> <DATA-DEF name="dynamic.interactionrecord" short-description="Server stores the transaction history"> <CATEGORIES><interactive/></CATEGORIES> </DATA-DEF> <!-- "user" Data Schema --> <DATA-DEF name="user.name" short-description="User's Name" structref="#personname"> <CATEGORIES><physical/><demographic/></CATEGORIES> </DATA-DEF> <DATA-DEF name="user.bdate" short-description="User's Birth Date" structref="#date"> <CATEGORIES><demographic/></CATEGORIES> </DATA-DEF> <DATA-DEF name="user.cert" short-description="User's Identity certificate" structref="#certificate"> <CATEGORIES><uniqueid/></CATEGORIES> </DATA-DEF> <DATA-DEF name="user.gender" short-description="User's Gender"> <CATEGORIES><demographic/></CATEGORIES> </DATA-DEF> <DATA-DEF name="user.jobtitle" short-description="User's Job Title"> <CATEGORIES><demographic/></CATEGORIES> </DATA-DEF> <DATA-DEF name="user.home-info" short-description="User's Home Contact Information" structref="#contact"> <CATEGORIES><physical/><online/><demographic/></CATEGORIES> </DATA-DEF> <DATA-DEF name="user.business-info" short-description="User's Business Contact Information" structref="#contact"> <CATEGORIES><physical/><online/><demographic/></CATEGORIES> </DATA-DEF> <DATA-DEF name="user.employer" short-description="Name of User's Employer"> <CATEGORIES><demographic/></CATEGORIES> </DATA-DEF> <DATA-DEF name="user.department" short-description="Department or division of organization where user is employed"> <CATEGORIES><demographic/></CATEGORIES> </DATA-DEF> <!-- "thirdparty" Data Schema --> <DATA-DEF name="thirdparty.name" short-description="Third Party's Name" structref="#personname"> <CATEGORIES><physical/><demographic/></CATEGORIES> </DATA-DEF> <DATA-DEF name="thirdparty.bdate" short-description="Third Party's Birth Date" structref="#date"> <CATEGORIES><demographic/></CATEGORIES> </DATA-DEF> <DATA-DEF name="thirdparty.cert" short-description="Third Party's Identity certificate" structref="#certificate"> <CATEGORIES><uniqueid/></CATEGORIES> </DATA-DEF> <DATA-DEF name="thirdparty.gender" short-description="Third Party's Gender"> <CATEGORIES><demographic/></CATEGORIES> </DATA-DEF> <DATA-DEF name="thirdparty.jobtitle" short-description="Third Party's Job Title"> <CATEGORIES><demographic/></CATEGORIES> </DATA-DEF> <DATA-DEF name="thirdparty.home-info" short-description="Third Party's Home Contact Information" structref="#contact"> <CATEGORIES><physical/><online/><demographic/></CATEGORIES> </DATA-DEF> <DATA-DEF name="thirdparty.business-info" short-description="Third Party's Business Contact Information" structref="#contact"> <CATEGORIES><physical/><online/><demographic/></CATEGORIES> </DATA-DEF> <DATA-DEF name="thirdparty.employer" short-description="Name of Third Party's Employer"> <CATEGORIES><demographic/></CATEGORIES> </DATA-DEF> <DATA-DEF name="thirdparty.department" short-description="Department or division of organization where third party is employed"> <CATEGORIES><demographic/></CATEGORIES> </DATA-DEF> <!-- "business" Data Schema --> <DATA-DEF name="business.name" short-description="Organization Name"> <CATEGORIES><demographic/></CATEGORIES> </DATA-DEF> <DATA-DEF name="business.department" short-description="Department or division of organization"> <CATEGORIES><demographic/></CATEGORIES> </DATA-DEF> <DATA-DEF name="business.cert" short-description="Organization Identity certificate" structref="#certificate"> <CATEGORIES><uniqueid/></CATEGORIES> </DATA-DEF> <DATA-DEF name="business.contact-info" short-description="Contact Information for the Organization" structref="#contact"> <CATEGORIES><physical/></CATEGORIES> </DATA-DEF> </DATASCHEMA>
This appendix contains the XML Schema, both for P3P policy reference files, for P3P policy documents, and for P3P dataschema documents. An XML Schema may be used to validate the structure and datastruct values used in an instance of the schema given as an XML document. P3P policy and dataschema documents are XML documents that MUST conform to this schema. Note that this schema is based on the XML Schema working drafts [XML-Schema1][XML-Schema2], which are subject to change. The schema is also present as a separate file at the URI http://www.w3.org/2000/10/18/P3Pv1.xsd .
<!DOCTYPE schema PUBLIC '-//W3C//DTD XMLSCHEMA 200010//EN' 'http://www.w3.org/2000/10/XMLSchema.dtd' [ <!ATTLIST schema xmlns:p3p CDATA #FIXED 'http://www.w3.org/2000/10/18/P3Pv1'> ]> <schema xmlns='http://www.w3.org/2000/10/XMLSchema' xmlns:p3p='http://www.w3.org/2000/10/18/P3Pv1' targetNamespace='http://www.w3.org/2000/10/18/P3Pv1' elementFormDefault='qualified'> <!-- Basic P3P Data Type --> <simpleType name='yes_no'> <restriction base='string'> <enumeration value='yes'/> <enumeration value='no'/> </restriction> </simpleType> <!-- *********** Policy Reference *********** --> <!-- ************** META ************** --> <element name='META'> <complexType mixed='true'> <sequence minOccurs='0' maxOccurs='unbounded'> <element ref='p3p:POLICY-REFERENCES'/> <element ref='p3p:POLICIES' minOccurs='0'/> </sequence> </complexType> </element> <!-- ******* POLICY-REFERENCES ******** --> <element name='POLICY-REFERENCES'> <complexType> <sequence> <element ref='p3p:EXPIRY' minOccurs='0'/> <element ref='p3p:POLICY-REF' minOccurs='0' maxOccurs='unbounded'/> </sequence> </complexType> </element> <element name='POLICY-REF'> <complexType> <sequence> <element name='INCLUDE' minOccurs='0' maxOccurs='unbounded' type='uriReference'/> <element name='EXCLUDE' minOccurs='0' maxOccurs='unbounded' type='uriReference'/> <element name='COOKIE-INCLUDE' minOccurs='0' maxOccurs='unbounded' type='uriReference'/> <element name='COOKIE-EXCLUDE' minOccurs='0' maxOccurs='unbounded' type='uriReference'/> <element name='EMBEDDED-INCLUDE' minOccurs='0' maxOccurs='unbounded' type='uriReference'/> <element name='EMBEDDED-EXCLUDE' minOccurs='0' maxOccurs='unbounded' type='uriReference'/> <element name='METHOD' minOccurs='0' maxOccurs='unbounded' type='uriReference'/> </sequence> <attribute name='about' type='uriReference' use='required'/> </complexType> </element> <!-- ************* EXPIRY ************* --> <element name='EXPIRY'> <complexType> <attribute name='max-age' type='nonNegativeInteger' use='optional'/> <attribute name='date' type='string' use='optional'/> </complexType> </element> <!-- ************ POLICIES ************ --> <element name='POLICIES'> <complexType> <sequence> <element ref='p3p:POLICY' minOccurs='0' maxOccurs='unbounded'/> </sequence> </complexType> </element> <!-- **************** Policy **************** --> <!-- ************* POLICY ************* --> <element name='POLICY'> <complexType> <sequence> <element ref='p3p:EXTENSION' minOccurs='0' maxOccurs='unbounded'/> <element ref='p3p:EXPIRY' minOccurs='0'/> <element ref='p3p:DATASCHEMA' minOccurs='0'/> <element ref='p3p:ENTITY'/> <element ref='p3p:ACCESS'/> <element ref='p3p:DISPUTES-GROUP' minOccurs='0'/> <element ref='p3p:STATEMENT' minOccurs='0' maxOccurs='unbounded'/> <element ref='p3p:EXTENSION' minOccurs='0' maxOccurs='unbounded'/> </sequence> <attribute name='discuri' type='uriReference' use='required'/> <attribute name='opturi' type='uriReference' use='optional'/> <attribute name='name' type='ID' use='optional'/> </complexType> </element> <!-- ************* ENTITY ************* --> <element name='ENTITY'> <complexType> <sequence> <element ref='p3p:EXTENSION' minOccurs='0' maxOccurs='unbounded'/> <element ref='p3p:DATA-GROUP'/> <element ref='p3p:EXTENSION' minOccurs='0' maxOccurs='unbounded'/> </sequence> </complexType> </element> <!-- ************* ACCESS ************* --> <element name='ACCESS'> <complexType> <sequence> <choice> <element name='nonident' type='p3p:access-value'/> <element name='ident_contact' type='p3p:access-value'/> <element name='other_ident' type='p3p:access-value'/> <element name='contact_and_other' type='p3p:access-value'/> <element name='all' type='p3p:access-value'/> <element name='none' type='p3p:access-value'/> </choice> <element ref='p3p:EXTENSION' minOccurs='0' maxOccurs='unbounded'/> </sequence> </complexType> </element> <complexType name='access-value'/> <!-- ************ DISPUTES ************ --> <element name='DISPUTES-GROUP'> <complexType> <sequence> <element ref='p3p:DISPUTES' maxOccurs='unbounded'/> <element ref='p3p:EXTENSION' minOccurs='0' maxOccurs='unbounded'/> </sequence> </complexType> </element> <element name='DISPUTES'> <complexType> <sequence> <element ref='p3p:EXTENSION' minOccurs='0' maxOccurs='unbounded'/> <choice minOccurs='0'> <sequence> <element ref='p3p:LONG-DESCRIPTION'/> <element ref='p3p:IMG' minOccurs='0'/> <element ref='p3p:REMEDIES' minOccurs='0'/> <element ref='p3p:EXTENSION' minOccurs='0' maxOccurs='unbounded'/> </sequence> <sequence> <element ref='p3p:IMG'/> <element ref='p3p:REMEDIES' minOccurs='0'/> <element ref='p3p:EXTENSION' minOccurs='0' maxOccurs='unbounded'/> </sequence> <sequence> <element ref='p3p:REMEDIES'/> <element ref='p3p:EXTENSION' minOccurs='0' maxOccurs='unbounded'/> </sequence> </choice> </sequence> <attribute name='resolution-type' use='required'> <simpleType> <restriction base='string'> <enumeration value='service'/> <enumeration value='independent'/> <enumeration value='court'/> <enumeration value='law'/> </restriction> </simpleType> </attribute> <attribute name='service' type='uriReference' use='required'/> <attribute name='verification' type='string' use='optional'/> <attribute name='short-description' type='string' use='optional'/> </complexType> </element> <!-- ******** LONG-DESCRIPTION ******** --> <element name='LONG-DESCRIPTION'> <simpleType> <restriction base='string'/> </simpleType> </element> <!-- ************** IMG *************** --> <element name='IMG'> <complexType> <attribute name='src' type='uriReference' use='required'/> <attribute name='width' type='nonNegativeInteger' use='optional'/> <attribute name='height' type='nonNegativeInteger' use='optional'/> <attribute name='alt' type='string' use='required'/> </complexType> </element> <!-- ************ REMEDIES ************ --> <element name='REMEDIES'> <complexType> <sequence> <choice maxOccurs='unbounded'> <element name='correct' type='p3p:remedies-value'/> <element name='money' type='p3p:remedies-value'/> <element name='law' type='p3p:remedies-value'/> </choice> <element ref='p3p:EXTENSION' minOccurs='0' maxOccurs='unbounded'/> </sequence> </complexType> </element> <complexType name='remedies-value'/> <!-- *********** STATEMENT ************ --> <element name='STATEMENT'> <complexType> <sequence> <element ref='p3p:EXTENSION' minOccurs='0' maxOccurs='unbounded'/> <element name='CONSEQUENCE' minOccurs='0' type='string'/> <element name='NON-IDENTIFIABLE' minOccurs='0'> <complexType/> </element> <element ref='p3p:PURPOSE'/> <element ref='p3p:RECIPIENT'/> <element ref='p3p:RETENTION'/> <element ref='p3p:DATA-GROUP' maxOccurs='unbounded'/> <element ref='p3p:EXTENSION' minOccurs='0' maxOccurs='unbounded'/> </sequence> </complexType> </element> <complexType name='non-identifiable'/> <!-- ************ PURPOSE ************* --> <element name='PURPOSE'> <complexType> <sequence> <choice maxOccurs='unbounded'> <element name='current' type='p3p:purpose-value'/> <element name='admin' type='p3p:purpose-value'/> <element name='develop' type='p3p:purpose-value'/> <element name='customization' type='p3p:purpose-value'/> <element name='tailoring' type='p3p:purpose-value'/> <element name='pseudo-analysis' type='p3p:purpose-value'/> <element name='pseudo-decision' type='p3p:purpose-value'/> <element name='individual-analysis' type='p3p:purpose-value'/> <element name='individual-decision' type='p3p:purpose-value'/> <element name='contact' type='p3p:purpose-value'/> <element name='historical' type='p3p:purpose-value'/> <element name='telemarketing' type='p3p:purpose-value'/> <element name='other-purpose'> <complexType mixed='true'> <attribute name='required' use='optional' type='p3p:required-value'/> </complexType> </element> </choice> <element ref='p3p:EXTENSION' minOccurs='0' maxOccurs='unbounded'/> </sequence> </complexType> </element> <simpleType name='required-value'> <restriction base='string'> <enumeration value='always'/> <enumeration value='opt_in'/> <enumeration value='opt_out'/> </restriction> </simpleType> <complexType name='purpose-value'> <attribute name='required' use='optional' type='p3p:required-value'/> </complexType> <!-- *********** RECIPIENT ************ --> <element name='RECIPIENT'> <complexType> <sequence> <choice maxOccurs='unbounded'> <element name='ours'> <complexType> <sequence> <element ref='p3p:recipient-description' minOccurs='0' maxOccurs='unbounded'/> </sequence> </complexType> </element> <element name='same' type='p3p:recipient-value'/> <element name='other-recipient' type='p3p:recipient-value'/> <element name='delivery' type='p3p:recipient-value'/> <element name='public' type='p3p:recipient-value'/> <element name='unrelated' type='p3p:recipient-value'/> </choice> <element ref='p3p:EXTENSION' minOccurs='0' maxOccurs='unbounded'/> </sequence> </complexType> </element> <complexType name='recipient-value'> <sequence> <element ref='p3p:recipient-description' minOccurs='0' maxOccurs='unbounded'/> </sequence> <attribute name='required' use='optional' type='p3p:required-value'/> </complexType> <element name='recipient-description'> <complexType mixed='true'/> </element> <!-- *********** RETENTION ************ --> <element name='RETENTION'> <complexType> <sequence> <choice> <element name='no-retention' type='p3p:retention-value'/> <element name='stated-purpose' type='p3p:retention-value'/> <element name='legal-requirement' type='p3p:retention-value'/> <element name='indefinitely' type='p3p:retention-value'/> <element name='business-practices' type='p3p:retention-value'/> </choice> <element ref='p3p:EXTENSION' minOccurs='0' maxOccurs='unbounded'/> </sequence> </complexType> </element> <complexType name='retention-value'/> <!-- ************** DATA ************** --> <element name='DATA-GROUP'> <complexType> <sequence> <element ref='p3p:DATA' maxOccurs='unbounded'/> <element ref='p3p:EXTENSION' minOccurs='0' maxOccurs='unbounded'/> </sequence> <attribute name='base' type='uriReference' use='default' value='http://www.w3.org/TR/P3P/base'/> </complexType> </element> <element name='DATA'> <complexType mixed='true'> <sequence minOccurs='0' maxOccurs='unbounded'> <element ref='p3p:CATEGORIES'/> </sequence> <attribute name='ref' type='uriReference' use='required'/> <attribute name='optional' use='default' value='no' type='p3p:yes_no'/> </complexType> </element> <!-- ************** Data Schema ************* --> <!-- *********** DATASCHEMA *********** --> <element name='DATASCHEMA'> <complexType> <choice minOccurs='0' maxOccurs='unbounded'> <element ref='p3p:DATA-DEF'/> <element ref='p3p:DATA-STRUCT'/> <element ref='p3p:EXTENSION'/> </choice> </complexType> </element> <element name='DATA-DEF' type='p3p:data-def'/> <element name='DATA-STRUCT' type='p3p:data-def'/> <complexType name='data-def'> <sequence> <element ref='p3p:CATEGORIES' minOccurs='0'/> <element ref='p3p:LONG-DESCRIPTION' minOccurs='0'/> </sequence> <attribute name='name' type='ID' use='required'/> <attribute name='structref' type='uriReference' use='optional'/> <attribute name='short-description' type='string' use='optional'/> </complexType> <!-- *********** CATEGORIES *********** --> <element name='CATEGORIES'> <complexType> <choice maxOccurs='unbounded'> <element name='physical' type='p3p:categories-value'/> <element name='online' type='p3p:categories-value'/> <element name='uniqueid' type='p3p:categories-value'/> <element name='purchase' type='p3p:categories-value'/> <element name='financial' type='p3p:categories-value'/> <element name='computer' type='p3p:categories-value'/> <element name='navigation' type='p3p:categories-value'/> <element name='interactive' type='p3p:categories-value'/> <element name='demographic' type='p3p:categories-value'/> <element name='content' type='p3p:categories-value'/> <element name='state' type='p3p:categories-value'/> <element name='political' type='p3p:categories-value'/> <element name='health' type='p3p:categories-value'/> <element name='preference' type='p3p:categories-value'/> <element name='government' type='p3p:categories-value'/> <element name='other' type='string'/> </choice> </complexType> </element> <complexType name='categories-value'/> <!-- *********** EXTENSION ************ --> <element name='EXTENSION'> <complexType mixed='true'> <choice minOccurs='0' maxOccurs='unbounded'> <any minOccurs='0' maxOccurs='unbounded' processContents='skip'/> </choice> <attribute name='optional' use='default' value='yes' type='p3p:yes_no'/> </complexType> </element> </schema>
This appendix contains the DTD for policy documents and for dataschemas. The DTD is also present as a separate file at the URI http://www.w3.org/2000/10/18/P3Pv1.dtd .
<!-- *************** Entities *************** --> <!ENTITY % URI "CDATA"> <!ENTITY % NUMBER "CDATA"> <!-- *********** Policy Refernece *********** --> <!-- ************** META ************** --> <!ELEMENT META (#PCDATA | POLICY-REFERENCES | POLICIES)*> <!-- ******* POLICY-REFERENCES ******** --> <!ELEMENT POLICY-REFERENCES (EXPIRY?, POLICY-REF*)> <!ELEMENT POLICY-REF (INCLUDE*, EXCLUDE*, EMBEDDED-INCLUDE*, EMBEDDED-EXCLUDE*, METHOD*)> <!ATTLIST POLICY-REF about %URI; #REQUIRED > <!-- ************* EXPIRY ************* --> <!ELEMENT EXPIRY EMPTY> <!ATTLIST EXPIRY max-age %NUMBER; #IMPLIED date CDATA #IMPLIED > <!-- ************ POLICIES ************ --> <!ELEMENT POLICIES (POLICY*)> <!-- ***** INCLUDE/EXCLUDE/METHOD ***** --> <!ELEMENT INCLUDE (#PCDATA)> <!ELEMENT EXCLUDE (#PCDATA)> <!ELEMENT COOKIE-INCLUDE (#PCDATA)> <!ELEMENT COOKIE-EXCLUDE (#PCDATA)> <!ELEMENT EMBEDDED-INCLUDE (#PCDATA)> <!ELEMENT EMBEDDED-EXCLUDE (#PCDATA)> <!ELEMENT METHOD (#PCDATA)> <!-- **************** Policy **************** --> <!-- ************* POLICY ************* --> <!ELEMENT POLICY (EXTENSION*, EXPIRY?, DATASCHEMA?, ENTITY, ACCESS, DISPUTES-GROUP?, STATEMENT*, EXTENSION*)> <!ATTLIST POLICY discuri %URI; #REQUIRED opturi %URI; #IMPLIED name ID #IMPLIED > <!-- ************* ENTITY ************* --> <!ELEMENT ENTITY (EXTENSION*, DATA-GROUP, EXTENSION*)> <!-- ************* ACCESS ************* --> <!ELEMENT ACCESS ((nonident | all | contact_and_other | ident_contact | other_ident | none), EXTENSION*)> <!ELEMENT nonident EMPTY> <!ELEMENT all EMPTY> <!ELEMENT contact_and_other EMPTY> <!ELEMENT ident_contact EMPTY> <!ELEMENT other_ident EMPTY> <!ELEMENT none EMPTY> <!-- ************ DISPUTES ************ --> <!ELEMENT DISPUTES-GROUP (DISPUTES+, EXTENSION*)> <!ELEMENT DISPUTES (EXTENSION*, ( (LONG-DESCRIPTION, IMG?, REMEDIES?, EXTENSION*) | (IMG, REMEDIES?, EXTENSION*) | (REMEDIES, EXTENSION*) )?)> <!ATTLIST DISPUTES resolution-type (service | independent | court | law) #REQUIRED service %URI; #REQUIRED verification CDATA #IMPLIED short-description CDATA #IMPLIED > <!-- ******** LONG-DESCRIPTION ******** --> <!ELEMENT LONG-DESCRIPTION (#PCDATA)> <!-- ************** IMG *************** --> <!ELEMENT IMG EMPTY> <!ATTLIST IMG src %URI; #REQUIRED width %NUMBER; #IMPLIED height %NUMBER; #IMPLIED alt CDATA #REQUIRED > <!-- ************ REMEDIES ************ --> <!ELEMENT REMEDIES ((correct | money | law)+, EXTENSION*)> <!ELEMENT correct EMPTY> <!ELEMENT money EMPTY> <!ELEMENT law EMPTY> <!-- *********** STATEMENT ************ --> <!ELEMENT STATEMENT (EXTENSION*, NON-IDENTIFIABLE?, CONSEQUENCE?, PURPOSE, RECIPIENT, RETENTION, DATA-GROUP+, EXTENSION*)> <!-- ********** CONSEQUENCE *********** --> <!ELEMENT CONSEQUENCE (#PCDATA)> <!-- ******** NON-IDENTIFIABLE ******** --> <!ELEMENT NON-IDENTIFIABLE (EMPTY)> <!-- ************ PURPOSE ************* --> <!ELEMENT PURPOSE ((current | admin | develop | customization | tailoring | pseudo-analysis | pseudo-decision | individual-analysis | individual-decision | contact | historical | telemarketing | other-purpose)+, EXTENSION*)> <!ENTITY % pur_att "required (always | opt_in | opt_out) #IMPLIED"> <!ELEMENT current EMPTY> <!ATTLIST current %pur_att;> <!ELEMENT admin EMPTY> <!ATTLIST admin %pur_att;> <!ELEMENT develop EMPTY> <!ATTLIST develop %pur_att;> <!ELEMENT customization EMPTY> <!ATTLIST customization %pur_att;> <!ELEMENT tailoring EMPTY> <!ATTLIST tailoring %pur_att;> <!ELEMENT pseudo-analysis EMPTY> <!ATTLIST pseudo-analysis %pur_att;> <!ELEMENT pseudo-decision EMPTY> <!ATTLIST pseudo-decition %pur_att;> <!ELEMENT individual-analysis EMPTY> <!ATTLIST individual-analysis %pur_att;> <!ELEMENT individual-decision EMPTY> <!ATTLIST individual-decision %pur_att;> <!ELEMENT contact EMPTY> <!ATTLIST contact %pur_att;> <!ELEMENT profiling EMPTY> <!ATTLIST profiling %pur_att;> <!ELEMENT historical EMPTY> <!ATTLIST historical %pur_att;> <!ELEMENT telemarketing EMPTY> <!ATTLIST telemarketing %pur_att;> <!ELEMENT other-purpose (#PCDATA)> <!ATTLIST other-purpose %pur_att;> <!-- *********** RECIPIENT ************ --> <!ELEMENT RECIPIENT ((ours | same | other-recipient | delivery | public | unrelated)+, EXTENSION*)> <!ELEMENT ours (recipient-description*)> <!ELEMENT same (recipient-description*)> <!ATTLIST same %pur_att;> <!ELEMENT other-recipient (recipient-description*)> <!ATTLIST other-recipient %pur_att;> <!ELEMENT delivery (recipient-description*)> <!ATTLIST delivery %pur_att;> <!ELEMENT public (recipient-description*)> <!ATTLIST public %pur_att;> <!ELEMENT unrelated (recipient-description*)> <!ATTLIST unrelated %pur_att;> <!ELEMENT recipient-description (#PCDATA)> <!-- *********** RETENTION ************ --> <!ELEMENT RETENTION ((no-retention | stated-purpose | legal-requirement | indefinitely | business-practices), EXTENSION*)> <!ELEMENT no-retention EMPTY> <!ELEMENT stated-purpose EMPTY> <!ELEMENT legal-requirement EMPTY> <!ELEMENT indefinitely EMPTY> <!ELEMENT business-practices EMPTY> <!-- ************** DATA ************** --> <!ELEMENT DATA-GROUP (DATA+, EXTENSION*)> <!ATTLIST DATA-GROUP base %URI; "http://www.w3.org/TR/P3P/base" > <!ELEMENT DATA (#PCDATA | CATEGORIES)*> <!ATTLIST DATA ref %URI; #REQUIRED optional (yes | no) "no" > <!-- ************** Data Schema ************* --> <!-- *********** DATASCHEMA *********** --> <!ELEMENT DATASCHEMA (DATA-DEF | DATA-STRUCT | EXTENSION)*> <!ELEMENT DATA-DEF (CATEGORIES?, LONG-DESCRIPTION?)> <!ATTLIST DATA-DEF name ID #REQUIRED structref %URI; #IMPLIED short-description CDATA #IMPLIED > <!ELEMENT DATA-STRUCT (CATEGORIES?, LONG-DESCRIPTION?)> <!ATTLIST DATA-STRUCT name ID #REQUIRED structref %URI; #IMPLIED short-description CDATA #IMPLIED > <!-- *********** CATEGORIES *********** --> <!ELEMENT CATEGORIES (physical | online | uniqueid | purchase | financial | computer | navigation | interactive | demographic | content | state | political | health | preference | government | other)+> <!ELEMENT physical EMPTY> <!ELEMENT online EMPTY> <!ELEMENT uniqueid EMPTY> <!ELEMENT purchase EMPTY> <!ELEMENT financial EMPTY> <!ELEMENT computer EMPTY> <!ELEMENT navigation EMPTY> <!ELEMENT interactive EMPTY> <!ELEMENT demographic EMPTY> <!ELEMENT content EMPTY> <!ELEMENT state EMPTY> <!ELEMENT political EMPTY> <!ELEMENT health EMPTY> <!ELEMENT preference EMPTY> <!ELEMENT government EMPTY> <!ELEMENT other EMPTY> <!-- *********** EXTENSION ************ --> <!ELEMENT EXTENSION (#PCDATA)> <!ATTLIST EXTENSION optional (yes | no) "yes" >
The formal grammar of P3P is given in this specification using a slight modification of [ABNF]. The following is a simple description of the ABNF.
name = (elements)
(
element1 element2)
<a>*<b>element
<a>element
<a>*element
*<b>element
*element
[element]
"string"
or
'string'
Other notations used in the productions are:
/* ... */
This appendix describes the intent of P3P development and recommends guidelines regarding the responsible use of P3P technology. An earlier version was published in the W3C Note "P3P Guiding Principles".
The Platform for Privacy Preferences Project (P3P) has been designed to be flexible and support a diverse set of user preferences, public policies, service provider polices, and applications. This flexibility will provide opportunities for using P3P in a wide variety of innovative ways that its designers had not imagined. The P3P Guiding Principles were created in order to: express the intentions of the members of the P3P working groups when designing this technology and suggest how P3P can be used most effectively in order to maximize privacy and user confidence and trust on the Web. In keeping with our goal of flexibility, this document does not place requirements upon any party. Rather, it makes recommendations about 1) what should be done to be consistent with the intentions of the P3P designers and 2) how to maximize user confidence in P3P implementations and Web services. P3P was intended to help protect privacy on the Web. We encourage the organizations, individuals, policy-makers and companies who use P3P to embrace the guiding principles in order to reach this goal.
P3P has been designed to promote privacy and trust on the Web by enabling service providers to disclose their information practices, and enabling individuals to make informed decisions about the collection and use of their personal information. P3P user agents work on behalf of individuals to reach agreements with service providers about the collection and use of personal information. Trust is built upon the mutual understanding that each party will respect the agreement reached.
Service providers should preserve trust and protect privacy by applying relevant laws and principles of data protection and privacy to their information practices. The following is a list of privacy principles and guidelines that helped inform the development of P3P and may be useful to those who use P3P:
In addition, service providers and P3P implementers should recognize and address the special concerns surrounding children's privacy.
Service providers should provide timely and effective notices of their information practices, and user agents should provide effective tools for users to access these notices and make decisions based on them.
Service providers should:
User agents should:
Users should be given the ability to make meaningful choices about the collection, use, and disclosure of personal information. Users should retain control over their personal information and decide the conditions under which they will share it.
Service providers should:
User agents should:
Service providers should treat users and their personal information with fairness and integrity. This is essential for protecting privacy and promoting trust.
Service providers should:
User agents should:
While P3P itself does not include security mechanisms, it is intended to be used in conjunction with security tools. Users' personal information should always be protected with reasonable security safeguards in keeping with the sensitivity of the information.
Service providers should:
User agents should:
This specification was produced by the P3P Specification Working Group. The following individuals participated in the P3P Specification Working Group, chaired by Lorrie Cranor (AT&T): Mark Ackerman (University of California, Irvine), Margareta Björksten (Nokia), Eric Brunner (Engage), Joe Coco (Microsoft), Rajeev Dujari (Microsoft), Matthias Enzmann (GMD), Patrick Feng (RPI), Dan Jaye (Engage), Marit Koehntopp (Privacy Commission of Land Schleswig-Holstein, Germany), Yuichi Koike (NEC/W3C), Yusuke Koizumi (ENC), Daniel LaLiberte (Crystaliz), Marc Langheinrich (NEC/ETH Zurich), Daniel Lim (PrivacyBank), Ran Lotemberg (IDcide), Massimo Marchiori (W3C/MIT/UNIVE), Christine McKenna (Phone.com, Inc.), Mark Nottingham (Akamai), Paul Perry (Microsoft), Jules Polonetsky (Doubleckick), Martin Presler-Marshall (IBM), Joel Reidenberg (Fordham Law School), Dave Remy (Geotrust), Ari Schwartz (CDT), Noboru Shimizu (ENC), Rob Smibert (Jotter Technologies Inc.), Mark Uhrmacher (Doubleckick), Danny Weitzner (W3C), Michael Wallent (Microsoft), Rigo Wenning (W3C), Betty Whitaker (NCR), Kevin Yen (Netscape), Sam Yen (Citigroup), Alan Zausner (American Express).
The P3P Specification Working Group inherited a large part of the specification from previous P3P Working Groups. The Working Group would like to acknowledge the contributions of the members of these previous groups (affiliations shown are the members' affiliations at the time of their participation in each Working Group).
The P3P Implementation and Deployment Working Group, chaired by Rolf Nelson (W3C) and Marc Langheinrich (NEC/ETH Zurich): Mark Ackerman (University of California, Irvine), Rob Barrett (IBM), Joe Coco (Microsoft), Lorrie Cranor (AT&T), Massimo Marchiori (W3C/MIT), Gabe Montero (IBM), Stephen Morse (Netscape), Paul Perry (Microsoft), Ari Schwartz (CDT), Gabriel Speyer (Citibank), Betty Whitaker (NCR).
The P3P Syntax Working Group, chaired by Steve Lucas (Matchlogic): Lorrie Cranor (AT&T), Melissa Dunn (Microsoft), Daniel Jaye (Engage Technologies), Massimo Marchiori (W3C/MIT), Maclen Marvit (Narrowline), Max Metral (Firefly), Paul Perry (Firefly), Martin Presler-Marshall (IBM), Drummond Reed (Intermind), Joseph Reagle (W3C).
The P3P Vocabulary Harmonization Working Group, chaired by Joseph Reagle (W3C): Liz Blumenfeld (America Online), Ann Cavoukian (Information and Privacy Commission/Ontario), Scott Chalfant (Matchlogic), Lorrie Cranor (AT&T), Jim Crowe (Direct Marketing Association), Josef Dietl (W3C), David Duncan (Information and Privacy Commission/Ontario), Melissa Dunn (Microsoft), Patricica Faley (Direct Marketing Association), Marit Köhntopp (Privacy Commissioner of Schleswig-Holstein, Germany), Tony Lam (Hong Kong Privacy Commissioner's Office), Tara Lemmey (Narrowline), Jill Lesser (America Online), Steve Lucas (Matchlogic), Deirdre Mulligan (Center for Democracy and Technology), Nick Platten (Data Protection Consultant, formerly of DG XV, European Commission), Ari Schwartz (Center for Democracy and Technology), Jonathan Stark (TRUSTe).
The P3P Protocols and Data Transport Working Group, chaired by Yves Leroux (Digital): Lorrie Cranor (AT&T), Philip DesAutels (Matchlogic), Melissa Dunn (Microsoft), Peter Heymann (Intermind), Tatsuo Itabashi (Sony), Dan Jaye (Engage), Steve Lucas (Matchlogic), Jim Miller (W3C), Michael Myers (VeriSign), Paul Perry (FireFly), Martin Presler-Marshall (IBM), Joseph Reagle (W3C), Drummond Reed (Intermind), Craig Vodnik (Pencom Web Worlds).
The P3P Vocabulary Working Group, chaired by Lorrie Cranor (AT&T): Mark Ackerman (W3C), Philip DesAutels (W3C), Melissa Dunn (Microsoft), Joseph Reagle (W3C), Upendra Shardanand (Firefly).
The P3P Architecture Working Group, chaired by Martin Presler-Marshall (IBM): Mark Ackerman (W3C), Lorrie Cranor (AT&T), Philip DesAutels (W3C), Melissa Dunn (Microsoft), Joseph Reagle (W3C).
Finally, Appendix 7 is drawn from the W3C Note "P3P Guiding Principles", whose signatories are: Azer Bestavros (Bowne Internet Solutions), Ann Cavoukian (Information and Privacy Commission Ontario Canada), Lorrie Faith Cranor (AT&T Labs-Research), Josef Dietl (W3C), Daniel Jaye (Engage Technologies), Marit Köhntopp (Land Schleswig-Holstein), Tara Lemmey (Narrowline; TrustE), Steven Lucas (MatchLogic), Massimo Marchiori (W3C/MIT), Dave Marvit (Fujitsu Labs), Maclen Marvit (Narrowline Inc.), Yossi Matias (Tel Aviv University), James S. Miller (MIT), Deirdre Mulligan (Center for Democracy and Technology), Joseph Reagle (W3C), Drummond Reed (Intermind), Lawrence C. Stewart (Open Market, Inc.).
Change log from the 15 September 2000 Specification:
<current/>
and
<contact/>
purposes
COOKIE-INCLUDE
and
COOKIE-EXCLUDE
for cookies management
NON-IDENTIFIABLE
element
POLICIES
element
dynamic.clientevents
data
element