Signs of the Times essays

Signs of the Times essays Electronic Commerce is defined by Websters Dictionary as using computer networks to conduct business, including buying and selling online, electronic funds transfer, business communications, and using computers to access business information resources. The Electronic Commerce Association describes electronic commerce as doing business electronically. More precisely we could describe electronic commerce as involving the exchange of information using a combination of structured messages (EDI), unstructured messages (e-mail and documents), data access and direct support for business processes across the value chain. The Internet is only a small fraction of e-commerce applications. Intranets, Electronic Data Interchange (EDI) and Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) systems all contribute to business to business marketing, operations and financial services (Wareham, 2000). The Internet was designed to be used by government and academic users, but now it is rapidly becoming commercialized. It has on-line "shops", even electronic "shopping malls". Customers, browsing at their computers, can view products, read descriptions, and sometimes even try samples. They could pay by credit card, transmitting the necessary data by modem; but intercepting messages on the Internet is trivially easy for a smart hacker, so sending a credit-card number in an unscrambled message is inviting trouble. It would be relatively safe to send a credit card number encrypted with a hard-to-break code. That would require either a general adoption across the Internet of standard encoding protocols, or the making of prior arrangements between buyers and sellers. Both consumers and merchants could see a windfall if these problems are solved. For merchants, a secure and easily divisible supply of electronic money will motivate more Internet surfers to become on-line shoppers. Electronic money will also make it easier for smaller businesses to achieve a lev...