P3P Yields Answers—And New Questions
With its Platform for Privacy Preferences Project, or P3P, the consortium is beginning to enable computers to automatically read the electronically translated privacy policy of any site. P3P would scan the privacy policies posted on sites and compare the answers to privacy settings in consumers' browsers. If the site collects data in a way consumers do not like, Internet Explorer 6.0 may block cookies based on P3P, and AT&T's Privacy Bird browser enhancement tool will notify users.

But there are catches for Web site operators: If you do not have a P3P-coded privacy policy that a browser can read, your site's functionality or traffic may be impaired.

Also take care in translating your privacy policy to P3P-readable form. The translation of your written guidelines could cause any number of misstatements, and a false statement in a Web site's privacy policy could violate privacy and/or anti-fraud laws. In translating existing privacy policies, you may even confuse your customers depending on how you collect and use information.…
http://www.eweek.com/article/0,3658,s=706&a=23773,00.asp