A system and method for managing user data preferences across multiple online sites and applications. A privacy center can be configured to include a user interface and an application programming interface (API). The user interface can be employed to set preferences for specific data types in order to handle the data types with a different level of privacy than other similar data type by the user. The API permits a plurality of sites to discover user's preferences, field names, and categories of data recognized by the site. The API adds new data fields to accommodate future changes in both technology and in legal restrictions on data usage. An address with respect to the API and the user interface along with a token can be entered when installing an application and the application downloads the preferences and applies them based on requirement.