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Of course, this is just a paraphrase of what might be, says Joseph Reagle, policy analyst for W3C's P3 working group, but it may not be far off. "Part of the flexibility of the specification is that it enables pretty advanced, automated negotiations between the Web site an d the consumer's browser--assuming the Web storefront side has done a sophisticated implementation."

In the case of online negotiating, Reagle says, it could mean something like this: The consumer lands on a news service site. The consumer preferences indicate to the site's back-end system that the consumer will not divulge information on his favorite sports teams--which are likely part of his click-stream or bookmarks, for instance (suffice it to say that his favorite teams would be easy for the Web site to track if it wanted to). If the Web site P3 implementation is sophisticated enough, it may be able to send this sports fan's browser a message such as, "If you let us see your favorite sports teams, we'll make sure you get news on those teams delivered to your e-mail in-box every Monday morning." Then, the consumer would either be prompted with a nother dialog box to agree or disagree.

"It may also be that it won't be an endless series of dialog boxes," says Reagle. "Too much interaction could tur n consumers off, and that's a big part of this balancing act--give them privacy without inhibiting electronic commerce." The alternative to a never-ending diet of popping dialog boxes for this cyber negotiation in progress, Reagle says, is making the communication happen automatically between the back-end system of the site and the consumer's browser. Again, that hinges on implementation of P3 on both the client and server sides of the equation.

"If the consumer puts in his preferences that news services could have all personal taste information, then the news service site could go past the initial 'no sport team info' preference and still deliver the news," Reagle says. What fast becomes obvious is that there potentially will be an enormous amount of programming necessary for sophisticated Web sites.

It is possible, according to many observers close to this project, that Microsoft and Netscape will make things much easier for the network managers by incorporating a lot of the tedious programming into their Web servers.

"The benefit of P3 is that everyone has worked hard to make it open and flexible," DesAutels says. "But we have to wait and see exactly how the vendors will bring the capability to market."

There are many other pressing business ethics questions that are arising quickly. One that proffers serious food for thought is whether it is ethical to set Web site policies to take personal data as a default practice (if the consumer hasn't set specific preferences to the contrary), or if all data taken from consumers should be requested formally.

"This is called the opt-in or opt-out question," Lemmey says. "And it's already becoming a serious debate. Do consumers automatically consent to giving Web sites information if they don't set preferences to opt-out, or must they opt-in in order for Web sites to take the data?"

There are no answ ers yet, but stay tuned for this and other ongoing debates as this P3 story unfolds over the next year. The outcome of debates like this may directly affect your workload sometime soon.

Rivka Tadjer is a freelance journalist and technology columnist based in New York. She can be reached at 72241.2374@compuserve.com.