[10781] in Commercialization & Privatization of the Internet
Billing on the net (was Re: Internet vs Minitel)
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Glenn S. Tenney)
Wed Mar 9 03:39:18 1994
Date: Tue, 8 Mar 1994 18:51:07 -0800
To: Miles R Fidelman <fidelman@civicnet.org>, com-priv@psi.com
From: tenney@netcom.com (Glenn S. Tenney)
At 9:52 AM 3/8/94 -0500, Miles R Fidelman wrote:
>On Mon, 7 Mar 1994, Marvin Sirbu wrote:
>> ... The genious of Minitel is that it
>> provides a centralized billing system that allows these Kiosk operators
>> to make money, something that the Internet does not provide to the
>> myriad WWW or Gopher based service providers.
>
>Though, once we get past the Clipper debacle, and get to some
>standardized cryptography, digital signature and the ability to send
>one's mastercard number encrypted should go a long way toward centralized
>billing on the Internet.
Unfortunately, Miles, "you don't get it" :-) ... Being able to get a
credit card number over the net does nothing for the small information
provider. Have you ever tried to establish a merchant's credit card
account with your bank? I suggest that you do so... My company has two
corporate accounts at a large bank, have been with this large bank for
about nine years, and was told "You can apply for a merchant account if you
want to, but WITHOUT A STORE FRONT, WE DON'T SAY YES." Besides, getting a
merchant account is about the same as taking out a $10,000 or $20,000
unsecured loan (the banks do view it that way). Also, many banks are
requiring you to use their $300-400 terminals to enter credit cards -- even
if you never get a physical card to put into the machine.
Cryptography is not the solution to billing on the net. It is *A* solution
to a subset of the problem for medium to large providers, but it is nothing
like the Minitel solution which does satisfy the needs of the small
information provider.
Now, if you had suggested that all telecom providers be required to handle
the billing (the way the telcos do [or did] for 976 numbers), then you'd
have a solution that would work and support small information providers.
---
Glenn Tenney
tenney@netcom.com Amateur radio: AA6ER
(415) 574-3420 Fax: (415) 574-0546
