ELECTRONIC COMMERCE

€ "offering systems"
€ shops ---> storing halls
€ correspondent to mail-order selling

€ benefits: easy and fast access of services, global markets, not time-limited, opportunity to increase marketing information
€ limitations: operation qualities, delivery problems, lack of experience, protection of privacy, safety risks

€ (un)employment issues
€ environment issues

€ nowadays half of the WWW sites are commercial
€ commercial users are needed, also because government-subsidies decrease

THE PIECES OF THE INTERNET BUSINESS

€ 1994: 1. Hardware ($476 mill.), 2. Software ($160 mill.), 3. Access ($135 mill.), 4. Expertise ($59 mill.)

The Online Services and the Internet

€ CompuServe
€ America Online
€ Prodigy
---> rush to provide full Internet access
€ the online services aggregate 5 million subscribers
€ most of the companies access Internet via commercial online services

€ 3 important areas developing:
Infrastructure (ISDN, ATM),
technology (browsers, security),
content (real information available)

Internet Business Culture

€ businesses will be able to respond immediately to market fluctuations
€ the most important thing: CUSTOMER SUPPORT
€ customers can access or request product information 24-hours a day
€ no geographical differences (urban-rural)
€ spamming
€ flaming

World Wide Web in Business Use

€ still more information source than purchase source
€ purchasing definitely a trend on the rise
€ companies will use the online experience to supplement an existing business
€ a Web site can provide substantive information about the company, its products and other Web sites of interest
€ also fill-in forms (queries)
€ e-mail addesses
€ Web pages relatively inexpensive marketing platforms
€ next step: seamless and secure connectivity with order processing systems

Electronic Publishing

€ anyone can put a server on the Web
€ already thousands of online publications: books, newspapers, magazines

Standards and Specifications

€ especially in industries there are lots of plans of making the standards available over the Web
€ ANSI, NIST

Marketing to Techno-Savvies

€ media viewers --> media users
€ users have more power, they choose what they want to see or hear, they choose where they want to go on Web
€ users also decide whether they want to be persuaded
€ Donna Hoffman, Thomas Novak
€ Hermes Project
€ an unknown Web page is unlikely to receive many hits (also word of mouth is powerful)

€ Internet is not automatic marketing, customer support is very important:
- all e-mails must be answered, delivery and service emphasized, commitments kept
- traditionally, sales and marketing departments and information system groups operate separately with little interaction - this must change!!!!!
€ responsiveness is key!
€ new users coming on-line at a rate of 1000 per week and more ---> they need more guidance
€ target groups? demographics?

Proven Marketing Strategies

€ Advertise the location of your page
€ Register the page on search engines
€ Send out press releases
€ Hold a grand opening and a contest to go with it
€ Put the URL for the Web page everywhere a phone number would normally be put
€ Do not overuse complicated graphics
€ Make the design considerate of a wide range of technology
€ Offer statistics, top 10 lists, jokes, other links
€ Make sure that the Web page works

Educational Market

€ Universities, digital libraries (US Library of Congress is creating a National Digital Library), online museum exhibits etc. etc.

USES AND ABUSES

Copyrights

Censorship

Privacy
- marketing data ofter collected on consumers
- sometimes consumers are not aware of that or its intended use

Sexual Harassment
€ a woman won $2.5 million suit against her employer!

Who do you represent?
€ the reputation of the company
€it is easy to embarrass oneself and one's organization on a million servers at once

Security Incidents

€ increasing all the time
€ most of the incidents won't be reported, because of the fear of losing public and investor confidence
€ lack of time and resources to devote to security problems
€ only 1 % of Internet hosts have firewalls (entry points that restrict access to private networks)
€ in 70 % of cases, the perpetrators were known to the company, 58 % being former or current employees and 12 % being vendors, suppliers or subcontractors
€ CERT (Computer Emergancy Response Team)

Hackers and Crackers

€ some are simply thieves, others practicing a bizarre form of civil obedience, but also "adrenaline rush" is one of the reasons
€ SATAN (The Security Administrator Tool for Analyzing Networks) shows which doors have broken lock
€ CRACK helps hackers systematically discover passwords
€ password sniffing - recording keystrokes while users log-in to the system
€ IP spoofing
€ session hijacking - an attack in which an intruder takes over a session
€ question: Which laws and whose laws apply?

Computer Viruses

€ all software downloaded from the Internet or from any source should be scanned
€ Trojan Horse, Cascade, Crooked, Ear, Flip, Tequila, Mutation Engine, Jerusalem, V-Sign

Physical Security

€ access to the building, trashing (post-it notes?)

Host-base Security

€ file permissions, single-use passwords
€ system account management
€ reusable passwords should be changed often enough
€ encryption