[8402] in Commercialization & Privatization of the Internet
Online Shopping and Banking?
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Bob)
Wed Nov 17 21:11:25 1993
Date: Wed, 17 Nov 93 18:11:34 -0800
From: bobk@cyberspace.com (Bob)
To: com-priv@psi.com
The options to shop and do banking transactions electronically have
proven to be a highly desirable services on other commercial networks.
The Wall Street Journal recently had an article that said PCFlowers
on Prodigy has become one of the top five FTD sellers of flowers.
Microsoft announced today that it is getting into the home electronic
banking business with US West and US Bankcorp. I'm sure that the
Internet will soon have such services.
How far is the Internet from being able to provide reliable avenues
for online financial transactions? What would it take for reliable
email-ordering on the Net? How about banking and stock transactions?
Is the primary roadblock the security issue of sending sensitive
financial information (such as credit card numbers) over the Net?
In addition to the mechanics of how to implement such services, I'd
like to hear some thoughts and predictions on the evolution of this
important and probably inevitable development and its effect on the
character and nature of the Internet as we now know it.
==
Bob (bobk@cyberspace.com) Seattle, Washington
