E-COMMERCE

E-COMMERCE

Electronic Commerce (E-commerce) refers to buying and selling of goods or services over electronic system such as internet and other computer networks.

Electronic commerce that takes place between businesses is refereed to as business-to-business or B2B.

Electronic commerce that takes place between business and consumers is referred to as business-to-consumer or B2C.

Online shopping is a form of e-commerce where the buyer can visit the seller’s website, browse through the various products available and chose the one that best suits him/her. No intermediary is involved in this and the purchase process is completely electronic i.e., online.

4 PILLARS OF E-COMMERCE

For conducting e-commerce one must be aware of its 4 pillars that make e-commerce strong, these are:

1)      Authentication

2)      Integrity

3)      Privacy

4)      Non-Repudiation

1)      Authentication

Authentication means that both the sender and receiver must be able to identify each other i.e., identifying whether the person is himself or pretending to be someone.

It is required so that the receiver confirms to identify each other.

E.g.:  buying of goods online requires making the payment online as well. With the internet being such a popular and easy source of sitting at home and getting the goods delivered at home, people trust the online transactions and believe that their money is going in right hands. For buying goods online people have to provide their credit/debit card details to the merchant, so the person must be satisfied and assured that the information is going in the correct hands.

Likewise, the merchant should be sure that the owner of the credit card is using it.

2)      Integrity

One has to be sure that whatever the sender is sending, receiver is receiving the exact same content/message.

Integrity thus implies that the data has not been tampered by any intruder.

E.g.: if A is sending some information to B, then the information should be read only by B and intruder, say C, should not have any access to that information, and should not tamper the information.

3) Privacy

Privacy refers to that no intruder is able to see the content being sent. It is required so that the information has not been read and intercepted by any intruder.

E.G: if A and B are two persons who are exchanging some important message then another person C should not see that information.

5)      Non-Repudiation

Non-Repudiation is done to ensure that no party refuses sending or receiving of a message.

E.G: if A has sent some information to B, but later on denies sending any message, then how will one find out whether the information was sent by that person or not. To ensure that such a thing does not happen, non-repudiation is done.

So, in order to ensure that information exchanged done through e-commerce is safe, trustworthy and correct these 4 pillars must be known to the users of the e-commerce and understood well…