The 3Ps of information Improvements are needed in the 3Ps of online information, namely preferences, privacy and performance. New developments and knowledge transfer under this topic are improving the way the Internet delivers relevant content to our screens. Digital Economy © Ioannis Fudos With so much data available on the World Wide Web, it is getting harder for users to find the exact information they want. One way to overcome this challenge is to develop more 'push' solutions that send information directly to a user rather than scouring the Internet for hours. The EU-funded project 'The 3Ps of distributed information delivery: Preferences, privacy and performance' (DIP3) set out to develop models and techniques that help deliver better quality information, controlling the amount of useful data at the same time. The project team integrated user preferences in data delivery and exploited social connections between users in Web 2.0 technology based on social networks, social tagging and other concepts. Moreover, instead of traditional binary searches represented by a match/no-match model, DIP3 technology assigns degrees or relevance to deliver more interesting and relevant information to users. Features of such searches include eliminating repetition of results and exploring databases through recommendations. This dramatically improves results of database queries through improved representation, composition and application of preferences. As such, the project developed two new metrics that assess the relevance of results as a set, covering several user interests and content diversity. It also elaborated several personalised privacy mechanisms and models for this technology. Currently, the project is upgrading knowledge transfer in this area through a graduate course on data privacy in social networks and by modifying other undergraduate courses on data mining and databases. Several joint projects among universities in Cyprus, Greece, Italy and the United States will significantly enhance the 3Ps of data on the Internet. Lastly, the project also helped launch two projects to enhance SMEs through novel information delivery tools using social networks and smart phones.
