Purpose==

As the [[World Wide Web]] became a genuine medium in which to sell products and services, [[electronic commerce]] websites tried to collect more information about the people who purchased their merchandise. Some companies used controversial practices such as tracker [[HTTP cookie|cookies]] to ascertain the users' [[demographic profile|demographic]] information and buying habits, using this information to provide specifically targeted advertisements. Users who saw this as an invasion of [[privacy]] would sometimes turn off HTTP cookies or use [[anonymous proxy server|proxy server]]s to keep their personal information secure. P3P was designed to give users a more precise control of the kind of information that they allow to release. According to the W3C, the main goal of P3P "is to increase user trust and confidence in the Web through technical empowerment".<ref>{{cite web|title=Michael Young – Binäre Optionen – Tipps und Tricks – p3ptoolbox.org|url=http://www.p3ptoolbox.org/author/blogadmin/|website=www.p3ptoolbox.org|language=de-DE}}</ref>

P3P is a machine-readable language that helps to express a website’s data management practices. P3P manages information through privacy policies. When a website used P3P, they set up a set of policies that allows them to state their intended uses of personal information that may be gathered from their site visitors. When a user decided to use P3P, they set their own set of policies and state what personal information they will allow to be seen by the sites that they visit. Then when a user visited a site, P3P will compare what personal information the user is willing to release, and what information the server wants to get – if the two do not match, P3P would inform the user and ask if he/she is willing to proceed to the site, and risk giving up more personal information.<ref name="p3ptoolbox2">{{cite web |url=http://www.p3ptoolbox.org/guide/section2.shtml |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20020