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Q: What exactly does Privacy Finder do?
A: Privacy Finder is a privacy-enhanced search engine. Once you state your privacy preferences (low, medium, high, or custom), the search results are ordered based on how their computer-readable privacy policies comply with your preferences.

Q: How does Privacy Finder work?
A: After you enter your search query and select your privacy preferences, Privacy Finder uses either the Yahoo! or the Google search API (your choice) to retrieve a list of results. Next, Privacy Finder will check each of those web sites in an attempt to locate a P3P policy. If a valid policy is found, the policy is evaluated against your stated preferences.

Q: What do the low, medium, and high settings mean?
A: The low setting will warn you about sites that collect medical or health information and use it for purposes other than fulfilling your request, or may not allow you to remove yourself from their marketing/mailing lists. The medium setting has all the features of the low setting, but with the added features of warning you at sites that share your financial information with third parties, sites that share personally identifiable information with third parties, and sites that do not allow you to see what data they have collected about you. The high setting has all the features of the medium setting, but with the added features of warning you at sites that collect your financial information for purposes other than fulfilling your request, sites that analyze your personally identifiable information, and sites that collect or share non-personally identifiable information for purposes other than fulfilling your request. You can get more details about each setting by clicking on the link for the custom setting.

Q: Who is behind Privacy Finder?
A: Privacy Finder is operated by the CMU Usable Privacy and Security Laboratory (CUPS) at Carnegie Mellon University. CUPS is a team of professors and students who research ways to improve online privacy and security for end users. The Japanese version is provided by Carnegie Mellon CyLab Japan. The Privacy Finder software is based on the Privacy Bird® software originally developed by AT&T Corp. and distributed under an open source license.

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