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• Position: Up Front: news, trends & analysis - Brief Article

A good Internet privacy policy can be one of a business' best assets, but many aren't sure how to transform written guidelines into electronic rules.

Software to help businesses automate their Internet privacy policies, as well as software to alert Internet users to different privacy settings on Web sites, is much needed, according to experts who say privacy policies and practices in corporate America have been steadily declining over the past few years.

Consumers, however, still rate online privacy as one of their top concerns, according to the Electronic Privacy Center. Most people are still concerned about what happens to their personal information when they visit a Web site.

Corporations must diminish those concerns, and software does exist to help them do so. For example, IBM's Tivoli Privacy Wizard transforms an enterprise's written privacy policies into electronic guidelines that can be used to stop employees from violating the rules. The software can prevent an...