P3P - Nothing To Loose, Everything To Gain
A P3P policy allows browsers such as IE to decide whether they will block a cookie or not. This is of course important with regards to affiliate marketing as tracking is usually reliant on cookies.
There are two parts of a P3P policy, the actual policy which is a XML document explaining what you do with data collected from users, this is accessible if the user clicks the view policy option in IE, the second part, the important part, is the Compact Policy (CP). A website may have a correct Compact Policy, but not have the policy document, while not correct, it does not make a difference, as the IE uses this compact policy.
The Compact Policy is a header in the HTTP header for the domain name. It is a list of ids which explain what you do with the data.
At present it seems that this is more an issue in IE - which is the most popular browser. If a user has its IE cookie settings set to High, first party cookies - ones set by the Merchant - will not be allowed if the Merchant does not have a P3P compact policy. Most merchants have ignored this as they feel it's a small population whom are affected. It takes very little time and costs nothing more than your technical teams time to integrate a P3P compact policy to a website.
There are two parts of a P3P policy, the actual policy which is a XML document explaining what you do with data collected from users, this is accessible if the user clicks the view policy option in IE, the second part, the important part, is the Compact Policy (CP). A website may have a correct Compact Policy, but not have the policy document, while not correct, it does not make a difference, as the IE uses this compact policy.
The Compact Policy is a header in the HTTP header for the domain name. It is a list of ids which explain what you do with the data.
At present it seems that this is more an issue in IE - which is the most popular browser. If a user has its IE cookie settings set to High, first party cookies - ones set by the Merchant - will not be allowed if the Merchant does not have a P3P compact policy. Most merchants have ignored this as they feel it's a small population whom are affected. It takes very little time and costs nothing more than your technical teams time to integrate a P3P compact policy to a website.
