Wiley Web Commerce Security: Design and Development 978-0-470-62446-3 User Manual

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1

Internet Era: E-Commerce

This chapter does not intend to bore you with history and old-age content. Quite 
the contrary; we want to fast forward to new-age technology and e-commerce 
core concepts. However, it is essential to understand the basic yet prominent 
building blocks of the field of commerce before we dig into the new era. To grasp 
e-commerce, you need to understand the following concepts: 

Commerce

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Payment

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Distributed computing

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Commerce and payment both have a much longer history than distributed 

computing, but that’s the beauty of e-commerce; it is where the old world meets 
the new world! We are going to discuss how payment worked in the old days, 
and then describe how it operates now.

Evolution of Commerce

The Merriam Webster dictionary defines commerce this way:

  1.  social intercourse: interchange of ideas, opinions, or sentiments
  2.  the exchanges or buying and selling of commodities on a large scale 

involving transportation from place to place

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