custom HTTP headers - eg p3p
Posted: Tue Dec 07, 2004 5:09 am
I am in the process of looking into the possibility of adding custom HTTP headers into documents. This would require a seperate table in the database with a relationship between the headers and the document ID. php actually makes this somewhat simple, each header could be 1 string (varchar/text in the DB). Then loop through each header for the document ID and issue the php header() command.
I have not seen anywhere that indicates this functionality is currently present. This is required to do p3p and may be required for other applications.
fyi: p3p is a privacy system (with no guarantee the website operator is telling the truth) but it involves a http header P3P followed by some flags which indicate how data is collected (or if it is), how it is used, what the dispute process is, etc. This is more or less a per document thing (you may use 3rd party cookies on one page (banner ads for example) but not on another (google for instance prevents you from using AdSense on an error page or login page), you could collect information only on one page, but nowhere else.
IE (and most likely others if not now then soon) support P3P headres and if the header doesnt have specific flags could be configured to not accept certain types of data (possibly cookies, possibly render anything on the page, possibly ...).
Example P3P headers (remember each of these can be unique per page)
P3P: CP="IDC DSP COR CURa ADMa OUR IND PHY ONL COM STA"
P3P: href="/your_2nd_policy/p3p.xml" CP="your compact policy"
for more info see http://www.w3.org/P3P/
And yes I am aware that you can do this via META tags, and that the META tag functionality exists on a per document basis (via add content->advanced->headers) but this functionality would add for the ability for other headers as well. And there is no guarantee that a browser will parse the META information before the page finishes downloading as such it may not like images etc from your site until after it has gotten the HTML, causing slower load times.
I have not seen anywhere that indicates this functionality is currently present. This is required to do p3p and may be required for other applications.
fyi: p3p is a privacy system (with no guarantee the website operator is telling the truth) but it involves a http header P3P followed by some flags which indicate how data is collected (or if it is), how it is used, what the dispute process is, etc. This is more or less a per document thing (you may use 3rd party cookies on one page (banner ads for example) but not on another (google for instance prevents you from using AdSense on an error page or login page), you could collect information only on one page, but nowhere else.
IE (and most likely others if not now then soon) support P3P headres and if the header doesnt have specific flags could be configured to not accept certain types of data (possibly cookies, possibly render anything on the page, possibly ...).
Example P3P headers (remember each of these can be unique per page)
P3P: CP="IDC DSP COR CURa ADMa OUR IND PHY ONL COM STA"
P3P: href="/your_2nd_policy/p3p.xml" CP="your compact policy"
for more info see http://www.w3.org/P3P/
And yes I am aware that you can do this via META tags, and that the META tag functionality exists on a per document basis (via add content->advanced->headers) but this functionality would add for the ability for other headers as well. And there is no guarantee that a browser will parse the META information before the page finishes downloading as such it may not like images etc from your site until after it has gotten the HTML, causing slower load times.