e-commerce (electronic commerce or EC)
E-commerce (electronic commerce or EC) is the buying and selling of
goods and services, or the transmitting of funds or data, over an
electronic network, primarily the internet. These business transactions
occur either as business-to-business, business-to-consumer,
consumer-to-consumer or consumer-to-business. The terms e-commerce and
e-business are often used interchangeably. The term e-tail is also
sometimes used in reference to transactional process for online shopping.
History of e-commerce
The beginnings of e-commerce can be traced to the 1960s, when businesses started using Electronic Data Interchange (EDI)
to share business documents with other companies. In 1979, the American
National Standards Institute developed ASC X12 as a universal standard
for businesses to share documents through electronic networks. After the
number of individual users sharing electronic documents with each other
grew in the 1980s, in the 1990s the rise of eBay and Amazon
revolutionized the e-commerce industry. Consumers can now purchase
endless amounts of items online, both from typical brick and mortar
stores with e-commerce capabilities and one another.
E-commerce applications
E-commerce is conducted using a variety of applications, such as email, online catalogs and shopping carts, EDI, File Transfer Protocol,
and web services. This includes business-to-business activities and
outreach such as using email for unsolicited ads (usually viewed as
spam) to consumers and other business prospects, as well as to send out
e-newsletters to subscribers. More companies now try to entice consumers
directly online, using tools such as digital coupons, social media marketing and targeted advertisements.
Government regulations for e-commerce
In the United States, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) and the Payment Card Industry (PCI) Security Standards Council are among the primary agencies that regulate e-commerce activities. The FTC monitors activities such as online advertising, content marketing and customer privacy, while the PCI Council develops standards and rules including PCI-DSS compliance that outlines procedures for proper handling and storage of consumers' financial data.To ensure the security, privacy and effectiveness of e-commerce,
businesses should authenticate business transactions, control access to
resources such as webpages for registered or selected users, encrypt
communications and implement security technologies such as the Secure
Sockets Layer and two factor authentication.
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