On shopping incognito
Ralf C. Hauser, Gene Tsudik · 1996
The advent and ever-increasing popularity of electronic commerce makes very apparent the issue of privacy and anonymity of electronic consumers. Technologies are already in existence that offer some degree of electronic privacy, e.g., electronic/digital cash. However, the mere fact that electronic commerce is conducted over existing network infrastructure (such as the global Internet) runs counter to the privacy of the consumer. This is due mainly to the end-to-end nature of application protocols that are used as vehicles for electronic commerce -- World-Wide Web (WWW), Electronic Mail, File Transfer Protocols and others. In this paper we discuss the issue of consumer anonymity and propose some solutions for the activities that typically "surround" electronic payment: pre-purchase browsing and merchandise delivery. 1 Introduction It is evident that both the importance and the proliferation of electronic commerce continue to grow; the Internet is a striking example. In such an environm...