Providing Security for Queries to Electronic Product Code Information Services

A computer program product for protecting data residing in a repository of an electronic product code information service against undesired data disclosure, comprising a computer useable medium including a computer readable program, wherein the computer readable program when executed on a computer causes the computer to:

• define one or more disclosure policies for an item tagged with an electronic product code, the item having associated data stored in the repository, the one or more disclosure policies describing one or more of:
• who is permitted to query the repository for information, what type of information is permitted to be obtained from the repository in response to a query, and under what condition the repository can be queried;
• and
• enforce the one or more disclosure policies in response to a received query from a party by only disclosing a subset of the data from the repository, the subset being determined in accordance with the defined one or more disclosure policies.

A computer program product for defining disclosure policies for data residing in a repository of an electronic product code information service, comprising a computer useable medium including a computer readable program, wherein the computer readable program when executed on a computer causes the computer to:

• present a user interface through which a user can define one or more disclosure policies for the data residing in the repository;
• receive user input defining the one or more disclosure policies;
• and
• apply the defined disclosure policies to the data residing in the repository.