E-commerce Transactions Scare Customers - Research Proposal Example

E-commerce transactions scare customers Topic introduction and problem statement With rising trend of doing business over the internet, the possibility of electronic cash transactions has increased many folds, during the last couple of decades. While e-commerce has simplified the method of buying and selling goods and services for shoppers and online sellers; many cases have been reported that involve fictitious transactions and electronic theft of bank account details. In addition, there have been cases of money being looted due to credit card and other such transactions, done for the purpose of on-line purchases. This has necessitated the need to have a secure environment, over the internet, where sellers and buyers can safely transact the business. On the other hand the private details of internet users are being accessed by unauthorised fakes, which make it mandatory to have in place the measures for combating such menace. In view of the above, the proposed research intends to investigate the privacy issues from social, psychological, economic and regulatory perspectives. Apart from this, the paper would investigate into the technical issues, related to provision of security for e-commerce transactions. However, the personal information submitted at the time of such transaction by the customer can be misused by various fakes for committing many frauds, which include credit card and payment crimes. Hence, it is imperative to understand the affect of correctional methods that are needed to counter the challenges of privacy and security in e-commerce. Whether such measures have really helped the buyer and seller? On the other hand it might have dampened the business prospects of sellers, as consumers fear that their personal data can land up in the hands of criminal elements. This is particularly relevant, considering the current terrorism threat, all-over the world. Research Question As businesses, around the world, are still trying hard to find a perfect solution to the above-stated problem, the proposed research question for this paper would be: “What steps companies should take, in e-commerce, to ally the fears of customers regarding reuse of their personal information?” Literature review Previous research studies conducted in this direction have reported in detail about various perspectives that relate to security and privacy issues. A poll conducted by business week revealed that 40% online shoppers were surprised to find their personal details being used by others, for different business purposes, while 57% of such online consumers favoured mandatory laws for regulating the use of such information. (Harris Poll, 200). The reason for these concerns could be traced to non-implementation of fundamental regulations with regard to fair information practices, by the online businesses. This has left only a few on-line consumers believing in safety of their personal details provided to website owners, while many online businesses might sell such information to others.(Culnan & Armstrong 1999). (Ackerman & Davis) Privacy concerns However, the subject of privacy being a debatable one, it is necessary to understand its definition. Culnan has defined privacy as an ability of individuals to have the control over the collection and use of their personal data. Nevertheless, there may be certain cases where disclosing private information is necessary. These would include cases involving access to credit or public health schemes.(Clarke 1999). While people feel the need to have control over the things which they want to share with others, the changing technology mandates new rules for safe conduction of business, particularly e-commerce. Clarke has discussed in detail various terms connected with the issue of privacy, which include choice, identification, digital persona, trust, among others. The use of technology, particularly the digital system, meant for e-commerce businesses has made it much easier to search and capture large amount of data about personal preferences and other details. Accordingly data mining is a common process to determine buying patterns and other personal trends. (Dhillon & Moores 2001). Since the data is collected for maintaining the safety of business transactions, and adding value to businesses and their patrons, the same can be reused and resold.(Culnan & Armstrong 1999). The reports suggest (Fisher 2001), 92% of the e-commerce consumers, surveyed for this purpose, indicated that companies do use their personal data, although they promise not doing so. (Light 2001) The privacy concerns are broadly categorised into two types. One being the unauthorized access to the personal details of consumers and other being reuse of the same, for unrelated purposes without their consent. (Culnan & Armstrong 1999). However, detailed research on the subject has thrown three different groups of e-consumers, with regard to privacy issues. While first type could be privacy fundamentalist, the second is pragmatic majority and the third is the group of people who are marginally concerned about privacy of their personal information.(Westin 1991). In this direction, it appears that majority of consumers in United States is willing to trade their personal details for some benefit, in terms of customer services. However, they would like to have protection against deliberate attack or criminal use of their personal data. (Dhillon & Moores 2001). (Ackerman & Davis) Security concerns Security issues related to e-commerce concerns both, the website owner as well as the consumer. While consumers fear loosing their financial details, the websites are afraid of loosing their money, in case of any theft or break-in. In addition, this would result in harbouring bad reputation for the site businesses. However, the solutions for countering these challenges need to be evaluated in terms of the risks associated with same. While transacting business payments through a credit card, the consumer needs giving his personal address and credit card details. The most frequent vulnerability in such cases would involve hacking of such information by web-crackers and misusing the same for different purposes, as data stored in web-cookies can be easily hacked by such crackers.(Graves & Curtin 2000). Similarly, hackers can steal information from local computer storage disks (Roberts, 2000). Even data can be hacked from the clues left by the users on keystrokes. (Neyses 2002). Poor encryption or its absence, while transacting sensitive data can also result in such vulnerability. (Borisov et al 2001) The web server, of an e-commerce site usually captures the financial and other details of the consumer, when the purchases are made on-line. Therefore, the archives of web servers are prone to be misused for credit card frauds. As recent surveys have reported credit card thefts, amounting to millions, it is essential that e-commerce merchants use secure web servers, which have the facility of storing the recent order histories behind the Firewall security system.(Winner, 2002) (Ackerman & Davis) Technologies involved As modern internet technology is shaping our lives, Clarke has listed various types of technologies used for countering the privacy issues. These include same for surveillance, framing agreements, labelling and trust, as well as, privacy-enhancing technologies. (Clarke, 2001) However, to overcome the security issues, the technologies involved could include cryptographic systems, and encryption technologies like PKI (public key infrastructure) system, which are able to address, largely, the above given vulnerabilities.(Adams et al 2001). An extension of this encryption technology can be in the form of digital signature, which could be an analogue of a handwritten signature. (Rabin 1978). In addition, the symmetric key systems are used for the purpose of encryption and decryption, which are highly guarded secrets. (RSA security, 2003b) (Ackerman & Davis) Methodology Both qualitative and quantitative research methods would be used in the proposed study, as statistical data needs analysis to find the consumer behaviour with regard to privacy and security concerns in e-commerce. In addition, the qualitative research methods would be helpful in determining the social and emotional impact of such concerns. The data collected for this purpose would be through personal and postal interviews, while secondary sources would be used for supporting the given arguments. Data analysis The analysis of collected data would be conducted using various available software applications, like SPSS. In addition, statistical tools like mean, mode, median and average would be used, which would help in reaching the conclusion, necessary for suggesting the required recommendations. WORKS-CITED Primary in-text citation reference Ackerman Mark S & Davis Jr. T. Donald, “Privacy and Security Issues in E-Commerce”, Review chapter for new economy handbook, accessed on 4th Feb 2011, from: http://www.eecs.umich.edu/~ackerm/pub/03e05/EC-privacy.ackerman.pdf Secondary in-text citation references Adams, C., P. Sylvester, M. Zolotarev, and R Zuccherato. 2001. Internet X.509 Public Key Infrastructure data validation and certification server protocols. Internet RFC 3029. Borisov, N., I. Goldberg, and D. Wagner. 2001. Intercepting Mobile Communications: The Insecurity of 802.1. Proceedings of the Seventh Annual International Conference on Mobile Computing and Networking : 180-189. Clarke, Roger. 1999. Introduction to Dataveillance and Information Privacy, and Definition of Terms. http://www.anu.edu.au/people/Roger.Clarke/DV/Intro.html. Culnan, Mary J., and Pamela K. Armstrong. 1999. Information Privacy Concerns, Procedural Fairness and Impersonal Trust: An Empirical Investigation. Organization Science, 10 (1) : 104-115 Dhillon, Gurpreet S., and Trevort T. Moores. 2001. Internet Privacy: Interpreting Key Issues. Information Resources Management Journal, 14 (4) : 33-37. Fisher, Susan. 2001. Privacy By Design. InfoWorld, 23 (27) : 20-22. Graves, P., and M. Curtin. 2000. Bank One Online Puts Customer Account Information At Risk. http://www.interhack.net/pubs/bankone-online. Harris Poll. 2000. Online Privacy: A Growing Threat. Business Week, March 20, 2000, 96. Light, David A. 2001. Sure, You Can Trust Us. MIT Sloan Management Review, 43 (1) : 17. Neyses, J. 2002. Higher Education Security Alert From the U.S. Secret Service: List of Keystroke Logging Programs. http://www.unh.edu/tcs/reports/sshesa.html. RSA Security. 2003b. What Is RC4? Cryptography FAQ, http://www.rsasecurity.com/rsalabs/faq/3-6-3.html. Rabin, M. O. 1978. Digitalized Signatures. In Foundations of Secure Computation. Edited by R. Lipton and R. De Millo. 155-166. New York: Academic Press. Roberts, P. 2002. Bugbear Virus Spreading Rapidly. PC World Online, Ocotober 2, 2002, Westin, Alan F. 1991. Harris-Equifax Consumer Privacy Survey 1991. Atlanta: Equifax, Inc. Winner, D. 2002. Making Your Network Safe for Databases. SANS Information Security Reading Room, July 21, 2002, Read More