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Consider expanding definition of CONSEQUENCE field to reflect how it is actually being used -- in particular to express summary of STATEMENT as well as value proposition. Alternatively, consider adding actual structure to CONSEQUENCE element to seperate out summary from value proposition.
On 28 May 2003 conference call WG consensus was to redefine CONSEQUENCE, but not add structure. Proposed new definition: A short summary (not to exceed 500 characters) of the data practices described in the statement that can be shown to a human user. [Note that we do not plan on changing the P3P data schema to reflect the 500 character limit, however, user agents would be advised to display no more than 500 characters. We can also discuss whether 500 characters is the right limit or whether it should be more or less.]
After discussions on 11 June conference call I revised my proposal for a new definition of the consequence element: A short summary or explanation of the data practices described in the statement that can be shown to a human user. This field is not intended to replace or duplicate the detailed information that may be provided in a site's full human-readable privacy policy. Note that user agents that display this field MAY truncate lengthy CONSEQUENCE strings or display this information only if a user follows a hyperlink. Also, I propose we change item 5 in the section "Completeness of Human Readable Translations" in the UA Guidelines to: Translations SHOULD include relevant human-readable fields from a P3P policy. However, user agents MAY truncate lengthy human-readable fields or display such fields on a click-through basis. Typically, 500 characters is adequate for for the human- readable P3P fields.
Consensus on 25 June 2003 call was to adopt proposed new wording (from previous comment) with a hyperlink to the relevant part of the user agent guidelines (probably section 6.1) and the following addition: (The definitionof CONSEQUENCE given here is somewhat different from the definition given in the P3P 1.0 specification, which stated that the element should be used for "consequences that can be shown to a human user to explain why the suggested practice may be valuable in a particular instance even if the user would not normally allow the practice." The P3P 1.1 definition has been broadened to reflect how the CONSEQUENCE element is being used by web sites in practice. As the P3P 1.1 definition subsumes the P3P 1.0 definition, it is not necessary for web sites that have developed their policies using the P3P 1.0 definition to change their policies unless they want to take advantage of the additional flexibility offered by the P3P 1.1 definition.)