P3P

Minimum version required

This directive requires EZproxy 3.0a (2004-08-02) or later.

Overview

P3P is a position-independent config.txt/ezproxy.cfg directive that does not interact with any other directives.

P3P is the abbreviation for Platform for Privacy Preferences. The details of this standard are available at www.w3.org/P3P/. The purpose of this standard is to specify information on how sites store and make use of personally identifiable information.

In EZproxy, the P3P directive is used to specify a compact privacy policy that is sent when the cookie used by EZproxy is set. Browsers such as Internet Explorer look at this policy to determine whether to accept or reject EZproxy's cookie.

The most common instance in which it is desirable to include the P3P directive occurs when EZproxy is used within an HTML frame. In such an instance, EZproxy is considered to be a third-party site. By default, Internet Explorer will not allow a third-party site to set a cookie unless that site provides an acceptable compact privacy policy.

Since OCLC does not have any knowledge of how sites make use of information collected by EZproxy, no attempt it made to suggest the most appropriate compact privacy policy for a site. OCLC recommends that institutions that want to use EZproxy from within a frame environment review the information at www.w3.org/P3P/ and use it to determine the appropriate policy for their site.

Example

The P3P directive is followed by the compact policy that should be sent when a cookie is set. For example,

P3P CP="IDC DSP COR CURa ADMa OUR IND PHY ONL COM STA"


specifies one possible compact policy.