EPIC's 1997 review of 100 frequently visited web sites checked whether sites collected personal information, had established privacy policies, made use of cookies, and allowed people to visit without disclosing their actual identity. No similar study has yet been conducted in Australia, but the Price Waterhouse 1997 survey found that only about one-third of respondent organisations had formal corporate privacy policies in place. This is despite the 25-year history of privacy concerns in Australia, the high level of public concern in Australia , and the widespread expectation that privacy regulation will be extended to the private sector generally . Attempts are being made to encourage corporations to recognise privacy, using language and mechanisms that they understand. The vehicle for the self-protective approach is cryptography applied in such a manner as to protect individual messages, and to produce anonymity and pseudonymity.
EPIC maintains a list of Internet privacy tools .
In addition, many forms of anonymous and pseudonymous net-based payment mechanisms variously have been designed, prototyped, and in some cases implemented. Privacy-Protective Infrastructure Proposals have been developed for mechanisms whereby the nature of the infrastructure could be such that privacy is protected. One example is the emergent formal specification for cookies , which may default to privacy-protective form, and only operate in an intrusive manner with the user's explicit authority. A comprehensive set of resources is provided in the main paper. Navigation Go to Roger's Home Page .