In the 'Privacy Policy' tab within 'Business Settings | Terms and Conditions', Actinic allows you to implement a 'Platform for Privacy Preferences' (P3P) privacy policy.
If present, these policies are detected by a customer's browser. They are then used to determine whether to allow the setting of a cookie from your store. This decision will be based on a user's particular privacy settings in their browser. The privacy settings may block the creation of cookies on the user's PC or to downgrade a cookie from being persistent (i.e. lasting) to being saved for the shopping session only.
Policies can be defined in two forms:
· 'Compact' - a set of codes
· 'Full' - a detailed XML statement
The blocking of cookies could prevent orders being taken at your web store.
Note: At the moment the absence of a compact policy will only cause a problem for shoppers with a High browser privacy setting, whereas the presence of a compact policy could, dependent upon its content, block cookies for users with a more tolerant privacy setting. You must be very careful therefore that you understand the full implications of any policy you deploy. Furthermore it is possible that browser settings will change with time and you should keep your settings under review. At the time of writing, deploying no P3P policy would appear the most prudent approach.
If you do decide to deploy a P3P policy, here is how to go about it:
· Use the 'P3P Policy Select' button to choose a policy that suits your needs. This may be one of the template policies Actinic has provided or you may decide to write your own in which case choose 'Custom P3P Policy' from the list.
· If you chose a template policy it will be displayed in the 'Compact Policy window' and some associated text will be included in your 'Online Policy Text'. You can edit the 'Online Policy Text' as you see fit but it retain the fundamental meaning. In other words the message you display to the shopper should be consistent with the compact policy codes.
· If you chose to have a custom policy, you can then define Online Policy Text, Custom Policy and Full Policy (i.e. the XML) that you require. The Full Policy can be left blank if required. All three policy elements should be consistent. Actinic makes no attempt to check the content of these policies or their consistency. It merely deploys whatever you provide to you web site.
Third party tools are available to prepare and validate policies. For more information on these and on P3P policies in general it is recommended that you consult http://www.w3.org/P3P/ for more information.