AT&T Pushes Privacy Awareness Bird

AT&T Research has unveiled a new project enabling Web surfers to easily understand the privacy policies of sites they visit, without having to delve into complex legalese. Currently in beta, software dubbed AT&T Privacy Bird installs as a plug-in to Internet Explorer and automatically reads in a site's P3P (Platform for Privacy Preferences) policies. Using visual and audio cues, the Bird warns users of sites that do not match a predefined set of privacy preferences.

Although it is a new standard, many sites have already begun to implement P3P after the release of Internet Explorer 6 raised its awareness. The World Wide Web Consortium offers a list of P3P-enabled Web sites and estimates that one-third of the top 100 most-visited sites support the new privacy standard. But this has not made it any easier for Web surfers to understand cryptic policies or keep track of changes.

"Consumers have found Web site privacy policies to be inaccessible; they're long and hard to read and understand," Lorrie Cranor, AT&T project manager for the Privacy Bird, told Reuters. "The Privacy Bird allows them to see at a glance if there's an issue that they need to take a look at and to be alerted if things have changed since the last time they were there."

Privacy Bird currently runs on Internet Explorer 5.01 and higher, and any version of Windows newer than 95. AT&T has set up a tour to guide users through configuring privacy preferences and using the Bird to help decipher a Web site's policies. A beta of AT&T Privacy Bird may be downloaded via FileForum.