Privacy and security — The drivers for growth of E-Commerce

Abstract

The US Department of Commerce's first report on the ‘Emerging Digital Economy’ (E-Commerce to you and me) found that online sales in 1997 exceeded $3.2 billion and could surpass $300 billion by the end of 2002 as more companies go online to conduct business over the Internet. The report goes on to predict a future in which millions of consumers will do much of their shopping, banking and reading online. As in many cases of accepting and utilising new technologies, Reuters Cyberspace has found that in E-Commerce Europe lags behind the US. In this explosion of the expansion of the Internet and of E-Commerce there is a positive stampede in this technological gold rush. Some of the pioneers have fallen by the wayside — you can tell a pioneer by the arrows in their back. In their headlong rush to join many companies and organizations are joining in for all the wrong reasons.