Abstract:
Electronic Commerce may simply be defined as performing of economic activities through the use of telecommunication networks. During the past three years, after the introduction of World Wide Web and the stati of web retailing concept, it has gained enonnous prominence in the modem world. The first chapter of my dissertation provides an in-depth understanding and insight into this much-hyped phenomenon of E-commerce, its brief history, and highlights its importance by giving worldwide statistics and future growth projections. The first chapter also explains different £commerce activities, classification of £-commerce operations into business-tobusiness, business-to-consumer, consumer-to-business and consumer-to-consumer segments and giving examples of each one of the four segments. It also introduces the readers about the economics of the web, which includes the differences in traditional and digital sales processes, changing roles of intermediaries with new intermediaries replacing the older ones in the virtual economic world, Cost analysis for establishing web-based business, logistics of £-commerce and success factors of web-based businesses. The second chapter of our thesis is about the major technical and policy issues concerning electronic commerce being faced throughout the world. This chapter starts with a discussion about the need for the extension of commercial to cover the electronic mode of business and commercial activities, legal acceptance of digital signatures and authentication. A brief introduction of UNCITRAL model law on Ecommerce is also given under this heading. Next comes the issue of security and data protection on the Internet.
