[10941] in Commercialization & Privatization of the Internet
Re: Billing on the net-Internet Money
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Dave Watson)
Tue Mar 15 07:07:59 1994
Date: Tue, 15 Mar 1994 00:36:58 -0800
To: com-priv@psi.com
From: davew@wimsey.com (Dave Watson)
>The thread about credit cards and the net prompts me to pose
>
>a general query: Are there any businesses accepting credit card
>orders over the net, either via email or other mechanisms?
>If so, how do these businesses deal with the obvious security
>and fraud concerns?
>---
>
> A\ Seth Ross
> A A\ Publisher, Albion Books
> A A\ 4547 California St., San Francisco, CA 94118
> AAAAAAA\ seth@albion.com, 415-752-7666, fax 415-752-5417
>A A\ "Computer books for a converging world."
The obvious solution, I think, is a form of transferable money like a
postal money order. It would be a natural for someone like Visa to develop.
When you need to send a sum of money electronically, you buy that amount
(by credit card from a local company, maybe your service provider itself,
or with cash).
Unlike a credit card, which is good for years, this would be a one-time
transaction with a unique authorization number for the amount of purchase
(shareware, $25 US, a database of bed and breakfasts in the UK, 22 pounds,
etc.) Credit cards are already set up to convert exchange rates around the
world, it's just that its too permanent a number to give out all over.
------------------------------
I look pretty young but I'm just backdated.
DaveW@wimsey.bc.ca
Information Engineer, library builder, consumer of hard drive space and
rock critic (semi-retired).
A founding member of the Digital Co-op.
Visit our Mosaic/WorldWideWeb site at Wimsey ___, extremely cool magazine
and other work accessible through the Digital Co-op Home page.
