ISSUES IN E-COMMERCE

Electronic commerce or ecommerce is a term for any type of business, or commercial transaction that includes the transmit of information across the Internet. Electronic commerce has expanded quickly over the past years and is anticipated to continue at this rate, or even step-up. The innovatory development of network technologies began electronic commerce as a global trend.
E – Commerce utilizes electronic systems for not only buying and selling of the goods and services but also in marketing, supply management, fund transfer. Today most of the businesses rely on electronic systems at least at some points. World Wide Web, the resultant of Internetworking is the main contributor where telephone, mobile phone, fax also serve the purpose.
Even though e-commerce technologies provide great benefits, any kind of online transaction give potential for immense misuse of these technologies. Several organizations become the target of e-commerce related crimes ranging from virus assault to business frauds, including e-mail theft, stealing sensitive data of person and credit card information.
U.S government’s new internet fraud center does a survey that gathers and studies consumer complaints. Online auctions make nearly 50% of the complaints obtained by the center. Other major types of complaints are security and commodities complaints 16.7%, credit card complaints 4.8%, identity thefts generate 2.9% of the complaints, loss of business chances 2.5% and professional service related complaints 1.2 %( Hossein Bidgoli, 2002).
The issues of technology security vulnerabilities are not only limited to e-commerce, but also is the part of much obvious issue affecting information systems all around the world. Generally, an E-Commerce environment includes front-end web pages, back-end databases and web servers.
The back-end database may be one of a kind of possible services (e.g. MySQL, MS-SQL, Oracle) where sensitive business and personal information are stored. Such as customer address, credit card details etc. this element should be considered as part of an E-Commerce environment, and is in itself vulnerable to revealing credit card information to a hacker.
For example, the hit on SalesGate comes in the focus of enhanced concern of online breach-of-security issues.In February 2000, a Computer hacker named Curador who is a 18-year old hacker from rural Wales,UK Breached Security of salesGate,an online sales website for small and large businesses and other website, Stealing credit card Numbers and Posting them on his own web.Curador titled his webpages as “Curador - The Saint of E-Commerce” Posted some 6000 Credit card numbers and climbed to have more than 23,000 Credit card numbers from a group of e-commerce websites including feelgoodfalls. com ,promoblity. Com and shoppingthailad com (Linda Rosencrance and DeWayne, 2000).
The first vulnerability that is basically stated is that of a SQL injection attack. This hit lets a hacker to extend or modify requests that are used to access back-end SQL databases that may have credit card information.
The second common security vulnerability is Weak Authentication and Authorization. Authentication mechanisms that do not ban multiple failed logins can be attacked using tools such as Brutus. Also, if the web site uses HTTP Basic Authentication or does not pass session IDs over SSL (Secure Sockets Layer), an attacker can inhale the transfer to find out user's authentication and/or authorization identification. While HTTP is a stateless protocol, web applications usually keep state using session IDs or transaction IDs stored in a cookie on the user's system. Therefore this session ID becomes the single way that the web application can decide the online identity of the user. If the session ID is stolen, then an attacker can take over a genuine user's online identity vis-à-vis the vulnerable web site. Where the algorithm used to produce the session ID is weak, it is minor to write a Perl script to list through the possible session ID space and break the application's authentication and authorization schemes.
Final weakness is Remote command execution. The most overwhelming web application vulnerabilities happen when the CGI script allows an attacker to execute operating system commands due to insufficient input validation. This mostly happens with the Perl and PHP scripted systems. Attackers can execute the commands with web server privileges when using the shell Meta characters and command separator. For example pacific Software Carello allowed remote command execution over HTTP which is a shopping cart application for e-commerce enabled sites running on Windows NT.This carello shopping cart has an element called DLL that cooperates with a client.an attacker can insert commands using deformed URLs that directs to remote command execution on the web server (Stuart McClure et al. 2003).
It’s important to define what is ethics related to Business (E- Commerce) first. Chris MacDonald, Ph.D(2010), Visiting Scholar at the University of Toronto's Clarkson Centre for Business Ethics and Board Effectiveness, at the Rotman School of Management. Defines “Business Ethics” as “the critical, structured examination of how people & institutions should behave in the world of commerce. In particular, it involves examining appropriate constraints on the pursuit of self-interest, or (for firms) profits, when the actions of individuals or firms affects others”. Here critical part emphasizes the morality concerns and judging their significance where structured part considers regulation of most important ones.
E- Commerce is different from traditional one because in E – Commerce dealing is done in cyberspace without knowing each other totally in most cases and between people who are far away geographically. There are more accessibility in E – Commerce so are the ethical issues. Ethical issues arise from both side customers (Consumer in the case of B2C sales) and sellers. Customers have the problems of trusting the vendor, site contents- having malicious contents or not, privacy – data provided would be kept confidential or not. Sellers have the fear of whether their site will be attacked by third parties or any customers. Both have the problem whether someone else is spying the interactions (Eavesdropping). The fast growth of the e-commerce raises number ethical questions.
One of the common ethical issues is unsolicited mail also called as spam. It’s mostly used for e- Marketing. Coalition against Unsolicited Bulk Email, Australia (CAUBE.AU,2003) specifies two features of spam. One it is commonly sent in bulk and another, recipient gets it without any request or knowledge. Opt-out option is used by most freeware providers to collect mail addresses. Since spam is sent in bulk, it consumes communication bandwidth for which mostly the recipient pay. Also it consumes time and causes stress. If there would be many spam messages then one important mail could be lost among them. Mail servers also need some technical measures to act against spam.
Is it ethical to steal someone else personal information? For example, the hit on AOL engineer case comes in the focus of heightened concern of e-mail theft. In June, 2004 an engineer, Jason Smathers working for America Online (AOL) was detained and accused with stealing 92 million e-mail addresses of AOL customers and peddling them to spammers that were vending online gambling sites. According to the case, he used the identity of another AOL employee, who is based in Tucson, to reap access to the record of the ''screen names'' of AOL members in May 2003. The record also contained the telephone number, ZIP code and the type of credit card used by each AOL member (Saul Hansell, 2004).According to ACM code of ethics and professional code of conduct, e-mail theft is wrong.ACM establishes general principle for IT professional to avoid harm to others. "Harm" means wound or harmful consequences, such as undesirable loss of information, loss of assets or redundant environmental impacts. This principle bans use of computing technology in means that cause in harm to users, the general public, employees, and employers. Harmful activities comprise intentional ruin or modification of files and programs directing to thoughtful loss of resources or needless overheads of human resources. Therefore, e-mail theft on the internet is unethical.
Since it is common nowadays, better to prevent them by using spam filters, being precautious in forwarding, giving mail addresses to suspicious sites than searching for the causes of spam. There are laws in several countries to act against spam such as “CAN-SPAM Act” in United States, “Anti-Spam” act in United Kingdom (John Leyden,2003). Service providers and Spammers are controlled under this. One example is the action taken against Transcom Internet Services Ltd (Transcom) for breaching anti – spam laws.
Another ethical issue is increase rate of pornography and gambling which leads to huge set of negative social consequences and cultural change of a society. Since the content of internet doesn’t have any view restriction or that much of access restriction common sites can be accessed by everybody. That might serve the commercial purpose. But it’s a huge thread to society. Children have the potential to be spoiled and abused. There are some firewalls and parent controls to control the web access. But internet is an open space and less people have control within themselves or above (parents, etc). Sellers and internet service providers are accountable to control the content and make sure it doesn’t violate any ethics.
Is online gambling ethical? According to deontological theory, activities are right or wrong in themselves, regardless of consequences .It is basically concerned with moral duty. In order to assess this rule, one has to focus on online gambling from the perspective of a person that has no financial or useful interest in the decision. Online gambling is a kind of entertainment just like playing video games.one user can think it is cheap to play online gambling for free rather than buy a video game. If an online gambler gains rest and enjoyment from online gambling, then there is no wrong effect with involving in it an also online gambling is much easier than buying lottery tickets. Since online gambling provides a site for people to relax and happiness their free time, it is morally good enough and acceptable to society.
Respecting the rights is one of the ethical principles which include privacy, property, and freedom of expression.in e-commerce environment an ethical issues raise when this principle is threatened. Privacy is a serious issue in electronic commerce that is the control over one’s personal data.A Business Week–Harris Poll stated that around 41% of on-line shoppers were extremely worried over the use of personal information, and 57% favored some sort of laws regulating how personal information is collected and used (HarrisPoll, 2000). In fact, rather a small number of consumers believe that they have really control over how personal information, uncovered online, is used by e-businesses.
In addition to ethical issues the drive of the E-commerce to influence the world through Web world keeps with it a range of legal issues, frequently related to privacy, taxation and intellectual property concerns such as copyright, trademark etc., mainly in the framework of doing business on the Internet.
Issue of online privacy is regularly evolving as internet extends as a tool of communication and commerce. Due to the nature of internet technology, it is probable for an e-commerce site to gather information about page viewing patterns of visitors, product selection and demographic information about the customers. This may terrify informational privacy rights of such customers. The rationale why there are different levels of expectations about privacy in different parts of the world is Cultural difference in different countries .Many countries come up with, privacy laws such as Canada, European Union (EU) etc.
In 1998, the European Union (EU) adopted a directive on the protection of personal data, which provide a regulatory framework to assure secure and free drive of personal data across the EU member countries, in addition to setting a baseline of security around personal information wherever it is stored, transmitted or processed (James Waldo et al. 2007).
Another legal issue is related to intellectual property on the environment of e-commerce. Commonly, a trademark can be possessed by an individual, a company, or any kind of legal entity. When someone else attempts to use that trademark (e.g. domain name or design) without consent, it can be considered an illegal consideration of the unique trademark. If someone uses a trademark in such a way that creates mix-up with prevailing marks, initiate consumers to make market mistakes or twists origins of goods. Most popular Trademark abuse on Internet is Cybersquatting and Cyber piracy. Vendors are also troubled by Cybersquatting, Cyber piracy where dummy people act as original and gets money paid for them in first case, converts customers towards them in second. Anticybersquatting Consumer Protection Act (ACPA) establishes civil liabilities for anyone who uses in bad reliance to benefit from an existing famed or distinctive trademark by registering an Internet domain name that is identical, or equivocally similar of that trademark (Kurt M and Saunders, 2001).
Moreover, Illegal access to stuff such as music, videos causes threat to creativity. Here the owners and publishers are highly affected. On the Internet one individual can transmit millions of copies all over the world. Software that is available for free on internet permits the transfer of songs and videos without the authorization of rights owners (e.g. Napster). Sara baase noted “Sites such as iTunes and the new Napster provide legal ways for obtaining inexpensive music and generate revenue for the industry and artists”. (Sara baase, 2008).

Issue of taxation of e-commerce sales demonstrates difficulty of governance and jurisdiction issues. Companies doing online business have to comply with multiple tax laws applicable to different Countries, unlike the business performing in one location, as they are doing business internationally.
They need to reimburse income tax, transaction tax and property tax. Taxes are charged by various authorities. Transaction tax includes sales tax and custom duties. Sales tax is imposed on goods sold. Relationship between a tax payer and a government is called nexus. E-businesses doing business in more than one Country should to deal with the issue of nexus to understand the governments/countries enabled to levy/receive taxes from them. Hence, an e-business may be required to distinctly file tax returns and pay taxes in different countries. A web site owned by a company in the United States should pay income tax to the American government on income made inside and/or outside of the U.S.A. though, to avoid the issue of double taxation, the U.S. tax law grants credit/refund for taxes paid (if any) to the foreign countries in relation to foreign earnings. It is essential for an online seller to know where the customer is located and what the law of sales tax is in that country and what the law of sales tax is in that country or jurisdiction to regulate whether or not a specific element is subject to sales tax (Zainooks ,2008).

Most of the businesses on the Internet involve websites with chatting facilities, instant messaging capability, and way of technology that gather registration and other information from site users. Because of the nature of their products, many websites target children as their customers. In fact, children embody a huge and rapidly rising part of online consumers. As of 1998, approximately ten million American children had access to the internet (Joshua Warmund, 2000).They do not realize the impacts of telling their personal information online, and parents failed to monitor their children's use of the Internet. Marketers release of large amounts of private information into the market.
As a result of it, In March 1998, a report showing the inadequate protection of children's information online was presented. In July 1998 the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act of 1998(COPPA) U.S was established.COPPA became effective on April 21, 2000 which protects the online privacy of children under thirteen by requiring businesses and commercial Web sites and online services to request parental approve for the collection, use, and disclosure of a child's personal information (Ruth Hill Bro,2000).
Apart from the ethical, legal and professional issues in e-commerce, there are a number of social and cultural concerns that also need consideration, such as reduce leisure, language barrier, online gambling etc.
Language barrier is considered as one of the most social issue in e-commerce. While English is the current business language, there are a vast number of consumers who speak economically significant languages like Spanish or Arabic. Ignoring huge groups of potential non-English speaking consumers can be a lost opportunity. As Computers can't presently offer exact translations and building a site multi-language always requires human translation service. Furthermore, as the popular of Internet content and programming languages are English-based, serious language training is compulsory. In addition, for business to consumer e-commerce and government services online to be successful, consumers also require both elementary literacy and computer skills.
Another important social issue is online gambling. One of the rapidly increasing online businesses is online gambling. Online gambling refers to a huge number of different gambling services that customers can access directly through electronic means including the online provision of sports betting services such as horse racing, casino games and others which leads to cultural change of a society and create social problems. Such as habit and the means being pursued by the member expresses to protect players and regulate problematic issues related to gambling. Another key issue is lack of protection to minors and other vulnerable pools.
Reduce leisure is also another social issues in e-commerce. E-commerce and other information and communication technologies (ICT) reduce the value of time as an aspect that states the formation of economic and social activity. It causes the potential for reducing time as consumers shop more efficiently, but could also reduce leisure, as the technology can offer an endless electronic link to work.
Furthermore, Cost of Telecommunication infrastructure has an important part in e-commerce social issues which involves human resource development and specialized technical skills. The organizations alike confront issues encircling the development of infrastructure for any e-commerce system that might be implemented. . E-commerce is computer and network demands, requiring expert programmers and applications-development personnel. The distributed nature of service delivery and the huge number of service staff needs a large investment in whatever devices are used to keep up the system of delivery. Therefore, the cost of setting up an e-commerce system is relatively high.

Most critical social issue center on the e-commerce is lack of protection to public health and safety through unrestricted online sales of drugs and cigarettes to minors. Moreover, many of the e-marketing organization sales second-rate cigarettes across tax avoidance and smuggling which may affect public health. Unlicensed pharmaceutical dealers offer promotion and unregulated advertisements and several online pharmacies provide access to some medicines that can be ordered freely by mail without a doctor's consent. For example, The National Association of Boards of Pharmacy(NABP) of united states and Drugstore.com, one of the largest online pharmacies, have advocated a number of sites, including search engine provider Google, Microsoft's MSN Web portal and America Online, said that they have carry on advertisements from illegitimate distributors. They felt that the main search engines have a social responsibility not to do this.
NABP and Drugstore.com require the sites to agree not to run advertisements from distributors unless they are approved by the trade organization.becuse, pharmacy advertisements carry a high outline given the public health and safety issues at venture (Stefanie Olsen, 2003).

In summary, Most of the legal issues around on electronic commerce are experienced. Hence all countries should consider on introducing or strengthening the laws against legal issues in E – Commerce. It is customers’ responsibility to act smartly without getting them in trouble. Sellers and service providers should act with honest and fairness. Therefore e-businesses make sure to provide the customer first their guarantee, and second peace of mind, which the information carried, is of no risk to any attacking eyes. Privacy and security are still continuing research issues. Though, nowadays these factors tolerate important consequences for e-commerce sites and consumers.

REFERENCES

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