P3P Adoption on E-Commerce Web sites: A Survey and Analysis

Privacy is an increasingly important issue for Internet users, especially in the world of e-commerce, where they must disclose large amounts of personal information to make purchases. Various privacy-enhancing technologies (PETs) are currently available, including the platform for privacy preferences project, privacy seals, and human-readable privacy policies. In particular, P3P has been the subject of considerable interest; however, it´s also highly dependent on the symbiotic deployment of P3P user agents and policies on vendors´ Web sites. Internet users and vendors must commit time and resources to deploy P3P agents or policies, and thus require evidence that the technology won´t stagnate or become obsolete. In this article, we survey the current rate of P3P deployment within the e-commerce industry. We also examine P3P´s usefulness as a PET, using Everett Rogers´ drivers of innovation adoption