Privacy Fox - A JavaScript-based P3P Agent for Mozilla Firefox

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describes Privacy Fox, a plug-in for the Mozilla Firefox web browser that translates the P3P policy of the. site being visited into two forms: a short …

Website: privacyfox.mozdev.org | Filesize: 216kb

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Privacy Fox - A JavaScript-based P3P Agent for Mozilla Firefox
Fahd Arshad
17-801: Privacy Policy, Law, and Technology
School of Computer Science, Carnegie Mellon University
Pittsburgh, PA 15213, USA.
Email: fahd@cmu.edu
December 7, 2004
1 Abstract
Website operators and visitors are both interested in effective communication of the privacy policies of a
website. In practice, however, privacy policies are either too long and difficult for visitors to read through,
or do not provide the information that visitors are looking for. Automated translation of P3P policies into
human readable form is a promising solution. P3P is a W3C-defined standard for publishing privacy policies
in XML. Its adoption is growing, especially amongst the most visited websites on the Internet. This paper
describes Privacy Fox, a plug-in for the Mozilla Firefox web browser that translates the P3P policy of the
site being visited into two forms: a short privacy notice that highlights the privacy practices that are of most
interest to the visitor, and a standard, detailed translation of the entire P3P policy. The translations warn
the user about incomplete or unsatisfactory policies.
2 Introduction
The Fair Information Practice principles (FIP) are recognized as the cornerstone…