Electronic commerce, commonly known as e-commerce, is a type of industry where buying and selling of product or service is conducted over

electronic systems such as the Internet and other computer networks. Electronic commerce draws on technologies such as Mobile commerce, Electronic funds transfer, Supply chain management, Internet marketing, Online transaction processing, Electronic data interchange (EDI), , and automated data collection systems.

The study of principles that individuals & organizations can use to determine right & wrong courses of actions.

Responsibility: individuals, organizations, & societies are responsible for the actions they take. Accountability: individuals, organizations & society should be held accountable to others for the consequences of their actions. Liability: a body of law is in place that permits individual to recover the damages done to them by others Due process: refers to the process by which laws are understood, with ability to appeal to higher authorities to ensure that the laws correctly

Privacy

Web Tracking

Disintermediation & Reintermediation

Ethical Issues

E-businesses draw information on how visitors use a site through log files. Analysis of log file means turning log data into application service or installing software that can pluck relevant information from files in-house. Companies track individuals movement through tracking software and cookie analysis. Programs such as cookies raise a batch of privacy concerns. The tracking history is stored on your PCs hard disk, and any time you revisit a website, the computer knows it. Many smart end users install programs such as Cookie cutters, Spam Butcher, etc which can provide users some control over the cookies.

Most Electronic Payment Systems knows the identity of the buyer. So it is necessary to protect the identity of a buyer who uses Electronic Payment System. A privacy issue related to the employees of company is tracking. Monitoring systems are installed in many companies to monitor e-mail and other web activities in order to identify employees who extensively use business hours for nonbusiness activities. The e-commerce activities performed by a buyer can be tracked by organizations. For example, reserving railway tickets for their personal journey purpose can be tracked.

Intermediation is one of the most important and interesting e-commerce issue related to loss of jobs. The services provided by intermediaries are (i) Matching and providing information. (ii) Value added services such as consulting. The first type of service (matching and providing information) can be fully automated, and this service is likely to be in e-marketplaces and portals that provide free services. The value added service requires expertise and this can only be partially automated. The phenomenon by which Intermediaries, who provide mainly matching and providing information services are eliminated is called Disintermediation. The brokers who provide value added services or who manage electronic intermediation (also known as infomediation), are not only surviving but may actually prosper, this phenomenon is called Reintermediation.

SECURITY & PRIVACY

SHIPPING

COMPLEXITY OF PROCESS

It is the most important issues for e-commerce because without security & privacy, the customer will scared get cheated by the seller.

Shipping issues means that when the buyer buys a product from the seller and the seller is from other state then they should use shipping to send the products to the buyer so that it can arrive to the place of buyer stay. In shipping, there need to have a good data management means that the seller need to manage the data securely such as addresses of buyer, names of buyer, credit card information of the buyer, and contact information of the buyer. They need to have a good management on this

It means when the buyer want to purchase that such products then they need to follow their step to purchase a products from them such as register as a member of that website, fill up the agreement form, key in all your personal details, key in your credit card number and so forth. There have many step to follow if want to purchase a products over the internet.

Intellectual property rights Net neutrality

Taxation

Encompasses all tangible and intangible products of human mind. The goal of intellectual property law is to balance two competing interests- the public and the private.

Maintaining this balance of interests is always challenged by the invention of new technologies.

Copyright Patents Trademark law

Protects original forms of expression (but not ideas) from being copied by others for a period of time. Digital Millennium Copyright Act of 1998 (DMCA): First major effort to adjust copyright laws to internet age.

Grants owner a 20-year exclusive monopoly on behind an invention

ideas

Internet basic infrastructure, software developed via public programs, not patented

Used to identify and distinguish goods, and indicate their source. Protects public by ensuring it gets what it pays for/ expects to receive. Protects trademark owner against piracy and misappropriation

Cybersquatting & Cyberpiracy: Registration of Domain name or other Internet use of existing trademark for purpose of extorting payment from ligitimate owners. Metatagging: Using others trademarks as metatags in misleading or confusing manner. Keywording: Using others trademarks as keywords on search engines in a misleading or confusing manner. Framing: Displaying content of another site within frame or window

Currently, all Internet traffic treated equally- all activities charged the same rate, no preferential assignment of bandwidth. Internet backbone providers would like to charge differentiated prices and ratio bandwidth by pricing or speed.

Issue of taxation of e-commerce sales illustrates complexity of governance issues. October 2007: Congress extended tax moratorium on multiple or discriminatory taxes on electronic commerce for an additional seven years.