WWW: Beyond the Basics

Chapter 8. Commerce

by Patrick N. Brooks

ABSTRACT

When the World Wide Web was in its infancy, commercial use of the Internet was limited. When these restrictions were lifted, commercial use of the Web exploded. In less than half a decade, the World Wide Web has brought innumerable changes to the ways companies do business. The major issue restraining the commercial use of the World Wide Web is the lack of a de facto standard system of paying for products or services. Another issue looming in the future of the World Wide Web is how users pay for access to Web content. One proposal is the use of 'microcents' -- transactions on the order of $0.0001. This chapter discusses these and other issues in the development of commerce on the World Wide Web.

CHAPTER CONTENT

  1. Introduction
  2. Secure Payment Systems
    1. First Virtual
    2. NetBill
    3. DigiCash's ecash
    4. IBM's Cryptolope
    5. MasterCard's Secure Electronic Transactions (SET)
    6. CyberCash
    7. Against Secure Payment Systems
    8. Summary and Conclusions
  3. Microcent Transactions
    1. Digital's Millicent Proposal
    2. Arguments Against Microcent Transactions
    3. Arguments For Microcent Transactions
  4. Other Commerce Issues
    1. Paying for network traffic
    2. Pricing as congestion control
    3. Shareware as a marketing tool
    4. WWW as a public relations tool
  5. Conclusions

    References

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Copyright © 1996 Patrick N. Brooks
All Rights Reserved

Patrick N. Brooks <pbrooks@vt.edu>