Things to take note to prevent e-auction fraud when a consumer participating in an e-auction

An e-auction is an electronic reverse auction where the suppliers use internet-based software to bid against each other online. The process of an e-auction aims to find a fair price for the goods by identifying buyers who need them the most. The process of running an e-auction can be complicated and e-auction technology need to be sure that the e-auction process has been backed up with a well run procurement process. Examples of e-auction are http://www.lelong.com.my/ and http://www.ebay.com.my/.

 

An e-auction fraud includes fraud due to the misrepresentation of a product advertised for sale through an internet auction site, the non delivery or a non payment for goods purchased through an internet auction site.

 

To prevent e-auction fraud

 

1. The consumer must deal with companies or individuals they know by reputation or experience. When the consumers aren’t familiar with the company, the consumers need do research. Consumers are advised to find out the company’s address and phone number. Never conduct business with a company that doesn’t list a physical address or telephone number on its Web site.

 

2. The consumers should read the terms and conditions of the contract carefully to make sure they understand the delivery option, return policy and product or service warranty. The consumers must ask for information about the exchange rate and any applicable duties and taxes before having the international transactions.

 

3. The consumers should also look for a privacy policy. The consumers must be sure that they are comfortable with how the company collects, protects and uses their personal information before they submit any details.

 

4. The consumer must make sure the transactions are secure. The consumers must not enter any financial information when consumers see a broken-key or open padlock symbol on the Internet browser. This means that the transaction is not secure and could be intercepted by a third party. When the key is complete or the padlock is locked, your browser is indicating a secure transaction.

 

5. The consumer must check for endorsement by an association or a quality assurance program. There are several seal of approval for Web sites that the consumer must confirm the credibility of the company and the Web site.

 

The consumers need to avoid spam by being careful about disclosing their e-mail address both on and off-line. The consumers must check a company’s privacy policy to find out whether their e-mail address could be shared with other companies.

E-Government in Malaysia: Its implementation so far and citizen’s adoption strategies

Malaysian e-government initiative started in 1997 and focus on reinventing the government machinery and achieving the ultimate vision 2020; attracting foreign investments and developing multimedia industries, especially expertise and technologies. E-government is the use of information technology in general and to offer delivery of public services to citizens. Besides that, it will improve information flows and processes within government to progress the speed and quality of policy development, coordination and enforcement.

Current applications of e-government in Malaysia are Driving License Online, e-filling, KWSP’s i-Akaun, E-Perolehan and Renewing Road Tax. KWSP’s i-Akaun is an EPF account which available on the internet. Account’s status or history of transaction can be check by members by using KWSP’s i-Akaun. Members can also use it to calculate amount eligible for withdrawal and it is convenient to update correct and complete employees’ information. Therefore, employer can use it to submit form and make payment online.

E-perolehan is an online procurement system that permits suppliers to provide their products or services online to government. With that, they can get, manage and process purchase order and receive payment through the internet. Nowadays, we can renew road tax and motor insurance policy at http://www.myeg.com.my/. A list of about 100 insurances companies for citizen is also provided to let citizen choose for it. In addition, we can also renew driving licenses and pay or check traffic summonses online at http://www.jpj.gov.my/.

The implementation of e-government would bring advantages to the public administration and Malaysian society in several ways. First, efficiency can be improve by e-government since the use of information technology makes improvement in mass processing tasks and public administration operations. After that, services can be improved because the main element in restructuring government operations is to adopt a customer-focused approach. These applications will provide a seamless online service and thus traditional government services can be improved. Third, specific outcome would be achieved. The internet can aid stakeholders share ideas and information and contribute to particular policy outcomes.

Many citizens in Malaysia are still skeptical to trust electronic transactions such as paying bills online. Some of them are lack of computer knowledge and some of them face language problem when using it. Therefore, there are five ways to encourage more citizens to use the e-government application which include create incentives to move to the digital channel, making it mandatory, advertise, change the culture and form partnerships with the private sector. In addition, government can implement more languages in e-government to those consumers who are not so good in English and Malay.

As government executives focus on tailoring online services to meet the needs of specific customer segments, just as business do, e-government programs will be more successful and deliver greater returns on the investments.  

A review on a post on Legal from my e-commerce blog

There is a lot of people using internet to download Mp3, Movie, Copyrighted Software and etc.They should be aware that downloading music, video, or software without paying is illegal. There are many services on the Internet which provide music and video at a reasonable cost. Some of the popular services are eMusic, Apple’s iTunes, Windows Media, Napster, and Rhapsody.

Nowadays a lot of Tv series or Movies is available in the internet after it have been air. Viewing or Downloading direct from internet is very common now because everything is free. The networks that produce the shows make the files available for free or for a small cost through one of the services mentioned above. However, the network still retains the copyright and if you distribute the file online in a form or in places not sanctioned by the network, they can sue you for infringement. In addition to most software applications and games have their own type of copy protection, generally in the form of a CD key or license key. This key is usually a series of seemingly random letters and numbers which is unique to each copy of the software.

Government also set up the new rules for those cyber cafe with a fixed daily business hours so that cyber cafe won't turning into social ills which will affect the peoples behaviour and the safety of society. Nowadays a lots iot of student skip their class due to having fun from gaming with friends in cyber cafe. This is very unhealthy and will cause a student not carry up their education as well and just keep staying at cyber cafe. With the new rules of fixed daily business hour and also cannot enter cybercafe with school uniform cybercafe won't be easily turn into a social ills places.

Here is some related Link..

Review a Local E-commerce Site

One of the Malaysia well known e-commerce websites is www.airasia.com which is set up by an airline company. This website provides the information need for travel and allows users to purchase their service through online. Usually, traveler can obtain cheaper price or even free of charge by booking the fare online without involving travel agent. One of this e-commerce site include a feature, that’s all the services can be enjoyed by e-payment with range of payment ways to suit traveler will.

 

Other than flight booking ticket, now the company provides service that link traveler to find hotel within the departure region and state through online. This site also offer traveler to rent car but is only available for some states such as Australia, Hang Zhou and Malaysia. Additionally, Air Asia provides destination guide for many areas around 14 countries. The most amazing is, this website provides the link to the medical too. Air Asia pride themselves on finding new and interesting ways of innovating, such as Web check-in, Express Boarding, E-gift Voucher, Booking via mobile phone, Official airline and Air Asia Extra Long. There are more service listed in the website which includes boarding express, further request, check and change fare, route map, and 

Mobile payment systems in Malaysia: Its potentials and consumers’ adoption strategies.

Mobile payments are defined as the use of a mobile device such as Cellular Phone, Smartphone and Personal Digital Assistance (PDA) to conduct a payment transaction in which money or funds are transferred from a payer to a receiver via an intermediary, or directly without an intermediary. So Mobile Money helps to reduce the bottlenecks that created by cash, check and credit cards.

There have two primary models for mobile payment, which is Premium SMS, and Mobile web payments (WAP).

Premium SMS is based transactional payments, means that the consumer sends a payment via an SMS text message to a short code and a premium charge is applied to their phone bill.

Mobile Web Payments , which is the consumer uses web pages displayed on their mobile phone to make the payment.

Adoption of mobile and electronic payments systems:

1. Compatibility: Compatibility captures the consistency between an innovation and the values, experiences, and needs of potential adopters.
   
   
2. Complexity: Complexity and problems with usability have contributed to the low adoption of a variety of payment systems, including smart cards and mobile banking.
   
   
3. Costs: There is a direct effect on consumer adoption if the cost of a payment transaction is on to customers. In order to gain a competitive advantage, a shopper in electronic channels should attentive to price the transaction costs of mobile payments to be low enough to make the total cost of purchase competitive with the physical world prices.

Electronic Currency

Electronic currency is also known as electronic cash, e-money, digital money, digital currency or digital cash which involves attempting to profit wherever one currency is traded for another. It is basically a system that allows people to pay for goods or services by transmitting a number from one computer to another. Identified e-money contains information disclose the identity of the person who originally withdrew the money form the bank. Moreover, anonymous e-money that withdrawn from an account can be given away or spent without leaving a transaction tray. Since internet and E-commerce are becoming part of our life and famous nowadays, thus electronic payments are also becoming the central part to online business between customer and seller.

Benefits of Electronic Currency Payments Systems

One of the most attractive features of electronic currency is that, unlike real cash, it is anonymous. This means that there is no way to obtain information about the customer when an electronic currency amount is sent from a customer to a merchant. Thus, there is an adequate protection against the privacy rights of the customer by using electronic currency.

After that, it allows us to do business and earn with only a few dollars of investment. Electronic currency trading is really up to you if you want to increase your investment or not and it does not demand much. Some electronic currency trading experts even suggest that beginners should begin with only a few dollars so that they can first discover the ropes about electronic currency. Therefore, you are given a lot of opportunities to profit without spending too much on investment through electronic currency trading.

The third benefit about electronic currency trading is that it is flexibility and convenience to the persons involved. You are given freedom on how to schedule your day since you do business online. Electronic currency trading business can conduct business anywhere and anytime in the world no matter is night or day. You can do business online whether you are at home, in the work place, at the coffee shop or virtually anywhere as long as there is an internet connection.

Low transaction cost is also one of the benefits of electronic currency trading because it unlike other businesses that eats up your profit with expensive fees. Electronic currency trading allows you to do business just with minimal fees and giving you more profit.

Examples of electronic currency are Electronic Fund Transfer (EFT) and direct deposit. The computer-based systems used to perform financial transactions electronically are EFT while direct deposit refers to a banking term used to pass on to certain systems used to transfer money. Some examples of electronic currency payment systems and organizations are Free Digital Money and ePoint. Free Digital Money is a free open source project aimed at promoting ideas and stimulating further innovation in the field of digital bearer money. It is like cash and can be transferred person-to-person without going through a bank or PayPal account. Then, ePoint refers to a system designed for anonymous electronic transactions, including micropayments.

Credit Card Debts: Causes and Prevention

Credit card allows consumers to purchase items and services without using cash. When the consumers use their credit card, their credit card issuer will pay the merchant on their behalf and bill to consumers later in the form of a monthly statement.

 Credit card debt is the example of unsecured consumer debt, accessed through ISO 7810 plastic credit cards. The debt accumulates and increases via interest and penalties when the consumer does not pay the company for the money that they have spent. When consumer does not pay the debt on time, the company will charge a late payment penalty and report the late payment to credit rating agencies. The late payment sometimes referred to as being in default.

Causes of Credit Card Debts

Less Income and More Expenses.

It happens that the main bread-winner of the household loses their job but at the same time they do not cut down their monthly expenses with the reduction in income. So, the family is forced to use their credit cards for general household goods.

Poor Money Management.

The poor money management is the best reasons why so many families accumulate lots of debt. The consumers do not have a monthly spending plan and they are not keeping track of their monthly bills. This makes consumers unaware of where their money goes. While consumer’s money goes towards items that are useless, they might be charged on their necessary purchases on their credit card, this indirectly force consumers to pay interest on these purchases every month.

Hoping to win in the lottery

Most of the people hope to win lottery but the chances of that happening are 0%.

Consumers are advised not to spend tomorrows saved money today just because consumers expect a promotion in their job or expecting heritage from a decreased grandfather.

Big medical expenses

The cost of obtaining cures and medicine is increasing every year. Most of the doctors accept credit cards because when the consumers need treatment now, consumers usually do not have the cash. Consumers use their credit cards because they do not have enough savings in the bank.

 

Underemployment

When consumers are underemployed, its means that consumers are not getting enough working hours at their job, consumers should cut down their lifestyle to match their current income.

Prevention of Credit Card Debts

Eating out

It is not necessary that the consumers have to go out to have their dinner. It’s much cheaper if the consumers cook at home. Besides that, the consumers can also get some recipes from books or newspaper and try to cook it at home. 

Recreational shopping

For many people, shopping is not just about buying things. It’s a social activity and is a form of entertainment. If the consumers wanted to get out of the debts, the consumers must change their attitude towards shopping. The consumers are advised to go shopping less unless they plan to buy something specific.

Smoking

Smoking is even worse for consumers than junk food. Smoking is more expensive. The consumers have to use their new thrifty lifestyle as a reason to kick the habit.

Designer clothes

When the consumers have credit card debt, the consumers will have to learn how to live without those expensive labels. Designer clothes are by their very definition items of luxury. When the consumers are in debt, they cannot afford luxury.

Late fees

The best way to avoid late fees is try to remember to pay the bills on time. There are 2 ways to help the consumers to avoid the extortionate penalties and at the same time the consumers can improve their credit score. When consumers have better credit score, the consumers can borrow money at a lower interest rate.

 

The application of pre-paid cash card for consumers

Have you ever use or try pre-paid cash card? Before that, do you know what pre-paid cash card is? Let me explain to you what it is all about. Pre-paid cash card is an electronic card which holds electronic monetary value that substitute for cash and coins for low-value payments. One can use the credits in the card to purchase goods and services from various merchants. More and more people are using it. It is like a credit or debit card, and gives users the ability to purchase products and service with a card but with a crucial difference. Users can only spend the balance that has been preloaded onto the card. This means that there is no risk of running into debt as it has no credit or overdraft facility.  

Touch ‘n Go (TNG) card is a multipurpose pre-paid card which can be used in public transportation around Selangor and all highway in Malaysia. However, applications of Touch-n-Go are expended toward the retail purchases.  It is expanding its business to retail purchase by starting with fast food industry that enables consumers to buy dough nut, burger or fast-food from 21 outlets such as Burger King, 7-Eleven, Dunkin’ Donut. It is imitating the success of Hong Kong’s Octopus Card by setting 5 to 10% of the card holders for retail purchase as current target of the company.

Octopus Card was launched in Hong Kong on year 1997, September. It is a rechargeable contactless stored value smart card to transfer electronic payments in online and offline system. It is widely used in payment system for transportation, supermarkets, fast food restaurant, car parks and other pint of sale application such as service station s and vending machines that have achieved good outcomes.

The application of 3rd party certification programme in Malaysia.

Internet users may fear whether personal data that they provide in the internet are safe and not stolen by others. Most of the public organizations have imposed internet security onto their internet web page. These internet securities basically guarantee four essential components in establishing trust on-line and smart card based transactions, and they are: confidentiality, authentication, integrity and non-repudiation.

At present the licensed Certification Authorities which can issue out digital certificates are Digicert Sdn Bhd and MSC Trustgate Dotcom Sdn Bhd. Both companies offer certification services with digital certificates to secure web servers, browser and email packages with a range of assurance level.

Besides, Malaysian Communications and Multimedia Commission have played a role where it oversees and regulates the operations of the Certification Authorities, repositories and date/time stamping services in Malaysia. Apart from that, it is also empowered to ensure that the licensed Certification Authorities and the recognized repositories and date/time service providers maintain a high level of integrity and quality in rendering their services. It also looks into the determination and coordination of the Certification Authority trust model and cross-certification policies with foreign Certification Authorities.

With the 3rd party certification programme in Malaysia, we will be able to transact on the internet without fear of having our personal data stolen, our information contaminated by third parties, and our transacting party denying any commercial commitment with us. Furthermore, it assists in the development of greater Internet based activities.  

How to safeguard our personal and financial data?

Nowadays the number of crime on stealing personal and financial data from outsider is increased. We should put more attention on how to safeguard our own personal and financial data from outsider. It is very dangerous for us to disclose our personal data in the internet. For those users who want disclose some of his or her personal data in internet he or she can subscribe anti virus software such as Crypto Heaven to safeguard the file. Crypto Heaven allow us to send encrypted email, share file such as picture and business document and securely backup in secure environment. Beside that there is others way to safeguard our data so that the hackers not able to access our personal and financial data.

Here is some way that we can safeguard our personal data,

We can use strong password. What kind of password we call it as strong password? A strong password is more that 12 words and it include Digit (0-9), Alphabetic (A-Z), and also some of the special character (@,#,^,<,>,$). Besides that the password that you set is hard to get from dictionary. For example: 10y@o$h3ng1987. Passwords such as Dog, 123456 or yys19 are not recommended to use. By having strong password hackers is not easy or not able to access our personal and financial data easily.

Besides that we can have Credit Card Holder can subscribe paypal to secure his or her Credit Card Number. It is because when we buy things from internet the seller charge us by have Credit Card Transaction, so we need to give them out credit card number so he or she can have transaction toward us. Paypal can secure the Credit Card Holder by having the transaction with the seller without giving out credit card number to the seller. 

Here is some others suggestion,

·      Avoid clicking on pop-up ads or downloading information from unknown sites.

·      Use your own computer, instead of a work or public machine, to access financial and other sensitive personal information.

·      Avoid giving your personal information to “cold callers” and other unknown parties online, via e-mail and over the phone.

·      Resist using free wireless connections — particularly in cafes, airports and other public places — to check personal information.

·      Use and update antivirus and antispyware software

This is my opinion to secure your personal and financial data. Well there will be others solution more to secure our personal and financial.

The threat of online security: How safe is our data?

Internet such as online shopping, online banking, communicating with overseas friends and others activities are becoming part of our life no matter for young peoples or old peoples. So, online security is important for all Internet users because Internet is not a safe place unless an adequate security against different types of threats that exist in cyberspace. 

There are 3 categories of cyber attacks:                

(1)  Accidental actions cover problems arising from basic lack of knowledge about online security concepts. Moreover, issues such as unintentional or erroneous business transactions, poor password choices, erroneous or outdated software, and unintentional disclosure are also included in accidental actions. It contributes to a large number of computer security risks.

 

(2)  Online fraud is also known as cyber vulnerability. It is a broad term covering Internet transactions that involve falsified information. The newest form of scheme that has been viewed in traditional settings for many years is personal identity theft on the Internet. Some most common forms of online fraud are the sale through Internet of counterfeit documents such as diplomas and recommendation letters sold as credentials. In the Internet world, electronic commerce information can be captured as a result of vulnerabilities in computer precautions.

 

(3)  Malicious attacks are attacks that particularly aimed to do harm and are known as premeditated. The typical malicious attacks are virus, worm, Trojan horse and rookit. Examples for malicious attacks are data theft and Denial of Service (DOS). Denial of service attacks is another form of malicious code and are carefully crafted, executed. DOS crash computers or issue floods of commands to overwhelm websites to steal personal information, such as credit-card and bank numbers. DOS are not fresh but they are rising in difficulty.

Security Tips

-        Install a firewall which is software that runs on another computer. Protective barriers between your computer and potential harmful attacks can create by firewall. Some more, it inspects network traffic passing through it and denies or allows passage based on a set of rules.    

-       Use one of the antivirus and antispyware programs on the market. This software protects against viruses and malicious code that come through email and other else. Good anti-virus software will automatically update itself on a regular basis and they can recognize the new threats.                                                

-       Pay attention to the messages from Windows that pop up on your screen, especially in the new Vista operating system.

-       Don’t click on any links in social network messages from people that you don’t know.

-       Keep security and system patches up to date.

-       Choose your computer passwords wisely.

-       Turn on Windows’ automatic- update function to get Microsoft’s regular security patches. 

Phishing: Examples and its prevention methods

Phishing is the criminally fraudulent process of attempting to acquire important information such as usernames, passwords and credit card details. For example, the hacker/cracker will send e-mail or instant message ask users to update their personal information such as credit card number and bank account number.

Example of phising 

Sample 1: Look like a message from eBay's payment system PayPal.

Figure 1.1 Example receipt of Ebay – Paypal

 

When the users click on the link, the users are re-directed to sample 2. At the sample 1 looks like the PayPal website, but when the users check the address at the top the users will see that the people who want users email address and PayPal password are hiding behind some obscure site.

Sample 2: Look like a message from eBay's payment system PayPal.

Some prevention methods for phishing

1. While the users receive any email from the bank ask users verify their account information, and then the users must check the sender of the email. When the email address is not the domain of a legitimate bank, then it is certain that email is a phishing.
2. The users do not follow a click here link in the email. The phishing emails usually have a ‘Click here to re-enter user information’ kind of link that leads to an illegitimate website.
3. The users must check contract information provided in the email. It is because have a lot of phishing emails contain fake contract information that would just serve users into their hands.
4. The users must check the information about users provided in the email. Hacker/cracker is getting better and better at obtaining users information.

The history and evolution of E-commerce

Nowadays, internet has changed the way that we buying and selling goods or services. We can make business transactions online on such a regular basic such as online banking and online booking for hotel rooms as well. This action of buying and selling goods or services through the internet is called “E-commerce”. E-commerce is not just about buying and selling, it is also about electronically collaborating, communicating, and discovering information which sometimes also referred as e-business. It is about e-learning, e-government, social networks and others else.

In the early 1970s, development of e-commerce applications set up with electronic funds transfer (EFT) which transfers of funds between accounts by electronic such as Automatic Teller Machines (ATM). Electronic data interchange (EDI) was developed in the late of 1970s to improve the limitation of EFT. It is a set of standards developed in the 1960’s to exchange business information and do electronic transactions.

When the United States government allowed public to access to the internet in 1991, there was a significant change for e-commerce. Online retail products were offers by CompuServe to its consumer and this gives people the first opportunity to buy things online. E-commerce started to become famous during 1994 and it took four years for it to build the security protocols and DSL which permit rapid access and connection to the internet.

E-commerce shifted from business-to-consumer to business-to-business in 1999 and change from business-to-business to business-to-exchange in 2001. The 5 largest and most popular world wide internet retailers are Amazon, Dell, Staples, Office Depot and Hewlett Packard. E-commerce is one of the leading forces of economic growth today. It bring many benefits to users, suppliers and consumers such as saving costs and times but it may also bring some limitations such as security and lack of trust. E-commerce still has a bright future and has the ability to change.

The summary of evolution e-commerce:

1984
Electronic Data Interchange (EDI) was standardized through ASC X12 and it is guaranteed that companies would be able to complete transactions with one another reliability.

1990
The first web browser, World Wide Web (WWW) was written by Tim Berners-Lee by using a NeXT computer.

1992
An online retail product was offers by CompuServe to its customers. This gives people the first opportunity to buy things using their computer.

1994
Netscape arrived and providing users a simple browser to surf the Internet and a safe online transaction technology called Secure Sockets Layer.

1995
Amazon.com and eBay.com which are the two biggest names in e-commerce are being launched.

1998
The Digital Subscriber line (DSL) provides faster and always-on Internet service to subscriber across California. This prompts people to spend more money and time.

1999
According to Business.com, retail spending over the Internet reaches $20 billion.

2000
The dot-com bust.

2003
Amazon had its first year with a full year of profit.

An example of an E-Commerce failure and its causes

The example of an E-Commerce failure that we choose is the DrKoop.com.

DrKoop.com was launched in July 1998 by Donald W. Hackett and John F. Zaccaro with $6 million from Superior Consultant Company Inc., a healthcare IT firm in Bloomfield, Michigan. Drkoop.com was a leading global healthcare Network providing measurable value to individuals worldwide. Its mission was to empower consumers with the information and resources they need to become active participants in the management of their own health. He is unlike most dot-com celebrities of the era; Koop owned a famous face before co-founding an Internet company and, indeed, before the Web even existed. As President Ronald Reagan’s surgeon general from 1981 to 1989, Koop and his iconic beard led a well-known anti-smoking campaign.

During the 1998 which in the operating revenues, It notched just $43,000, but that didn’t keep the company from going public in June 1999 and achieving, briefly, a peak market with capitalization of $1 billion. Subsequently, DrKoop.com’s business plan rested on advertising, and in 1999 there weren’t enough healthcare advertisers to support it and the many other healthcare dot-coms trolling for ad buyers.

However, the DrKoop.com fail to achieve complete success and are not able to face the challenges in market via Internet. Due to their unimpressive and non-persuaded marketing capacity as well as other weaknesses, they became bankrupt and failed to achieve success. Later, DrKoop.com, the medical information Web site that was once valued at over $1 billion, was sold to a Florida company for $186,000 in cash. Moreover, their shares, sold to the public in June 1999, rose as high as $45.75 three years ago, before falling with the collapse of the Internet stock bubble. Andrew Zipern (NYT)

There are several points that DrKoop.com fail:

• E-commerce has perceived by the management as important to achieve the goals of the company. However, the DrKoop.com stills an unrealized goal of the health-care industry.
• The Company sank into a cash crisis for the trademark, website and others.
• It is difficult to build the trust and brand value associated with his name to the consumer via internet. Moreover, it is related the health, so the consumer need more approval and confidence.
• Drkoop.com also is the target of several class-action lawsuits.
• The DrKoop.com project has to be building around an important competence of the company.

The DrKoop.com project also has to add value for the user. They need to identify the demands and need of the consumers as well as to understand the market and the needs of the consumers. In conclusion, the DrKoop.com needs to implementation of effective business strategies and a strategic management process for the betterment of the company desirable for achieving long lasting success of an e-commerce company.

Here is some source of E-Commerce Failure

An example of an E-Commerce success and its causes

E-commerce is the buying and selling of goods and services via computer networks, such as those used on Internet and World Wide Web. E-commerce may be conducted B2B (business to business) or B2C (business to consumer).

An example of an E-commerce success is eBay. San Jose, California is the headquarters for eBay and overall probably has something in the neighborhood of employees. The eBay is the world’s largest online trading community. They offering users is an opportunity to come together in one Internet site and be able to buy and trade a wide range of items, including fine collectibles. It allows people to pursue their interest and passions in the areas of their hobbies and collectibles.

The eBay successes because it allows people to often times connect with some very fond and special early childhood memories. It could be anything from collecting baseball cards to toy soldiers to Barbie dolls to doll houses, and so forth. It allows people to make that connection and relive a lot of those very vivid and very fond memories that they have from an earlier period of time. Another factor is that people really enjoy the experience of the shopping bazaar. The users can enjoy looking around for merchandise. The other component is that users really enjoy the competition of the bidding process. Everybody likes to get a bargain, and everybody, in some way, shape, or form, likes to haggle a little bit over the price. The eBay auction format allows users to do that. The other thing is that as it has grown, it has become a very practical place to buy and sell collectibles or commodities.

The causes for eBay success, it’s a fun place to work because the great majority of people who are selling on eBay are really warm, decent, trustworthy and honest people. It's great to see how they interact and show those same characteristics toward their fellow eBay users. The eBay have created in how to sell their items. The eBay might be the first example where a commerce site has actually been built around a community where people are exchanging information and exchanging goods, services and merchandise. So, many people have established additional brick-and-mortar businesses are slowly moving a lot of that business over to eBay. For example: eBay sets the rules for commerce and implement them in order for transactions to be fair, cheap and foreseeable. Majority of the consumers can buy and sell with reasonable confidence as well as they will also get what they were promised, even though eBay still have flaws that are fraud and irregularities. Nowadays on the eBay, they continue to make changes and unite the policies and technologies that make day-to-day activities even more faithful, honest, and efficient.

Google, Amazon and Ebay Revenue Model

Google is one of the Search Engine in the world. The main source of Google id from Advertising. For the year of 2006, Google have gain US$10.492 Billion from it Advertising Revenues wherelse US$112 Billion from Licensing and Other Revenue. GoogleAdwords and GoogleAdsense is the revenue model for Google. GoogleAdwords which offer pay-per-click (PPC) Advertising programm targeted advertising for text and banner advertisment. The program includes local,, national and international distribution. It is to allow the advertisers to present their advertisements to people at the moment the people are looking for information, which related to what the advertiser has offer. GoogleAdsense is an Ad serving program. The website owners can enroll to the program to enable text, image, and video advertisements on their sites. Revenue is generated on a per-click or the per-thousand-ads-displayed basis. The ads are administered by Google. The Google advertisers are required to pay the Google a fee, on each time a user clicks on one of their ads displayed on the web sites.

Google Adwords

Google Adsense

*More information of Google Advertising Program and Google Revenue Model

Amazon started by Online Bookstore. After sometime it diversified to vary product lines. Amazon is the first Major company sells goods by internet which the Amazon is completely e-commerce company. It also allow the user to leave down the comment, submit review and rating scale from one to five of the product. Amazon is pioneer affiliate partnership marketing. Partner of Amazon can display book from it website and sends the customer to Amazon website to purchase the book. Amazon will pay commission to the site owner.

eBay is the world largest auction site. It revenue model is online auction which mean the participants bid for the product and services over the internet. The highest bid will get the product and services from the seller. eBay also owns Paypal and skype. Paypal is a online transaction which the customer need not to disclose his/her credit card number which is more safe to the owner of the credit card. While skype is the buyer can have video conferencing with the seller via online so that the buyer can understand more and receieve more information regarding the product.

** Users can access to the homepage of Google, Amazon and eBay by clicking the Hyperlink from the words of Google, Amazon and eBay.

Sue Yee

My name is Lee Sue Yee. I come from Penang. I’m a BAC student in year three semester one at UTAR. My hobbies are playing badminton, swimming, watching movies, listening song, playing games and online chatting. Sometimes, I will play badminton with my cousin outside the garden when we are free. When I feel very stress, I will go for some sports. Sometimes, I will ask my cousin to accompany me to go for a swim or play some healthy games such as chess. Occasionally, I will watch movies together with my best friends in the cinema. While I feel boring, I will go shopping or singing at Green Box with my friends to fill up my emptines.

The top 5 websites that I visit the most are Yahoo, Google, Facebook, Window Live Messenger and Baidu. I use Yahoo to check my mail and mailing massages to my friends so that we keep contact to each other. Then, I also use Google to search and find more information when doing my assignment. It is easy to search and get many extra details on it. In Facebook, there are some games to play such as pet society, bowling buddies, word challenges, and world war. We can view our friends’ photos and profile from the Facebook. I use Facebook to play games and uploading my photos. Besides that, I can chat with my friends too. I also use Windows Live Messenger to chat and discuss assignments with my friends. At the same time, we can save our money instead by talking in the phone. Mostly, I listen songs from Baidu. There are many famous and nice songs to listen.

There are top 5 internet activities that I usually do are searching, mailing massages, chatting, play games and download movies and songs. We can use the internet to search and get different information from other places. We can mail messages via by internet to other people from other countries. There are many free online games in the Internet. Furthermore, we can also download movies or songs from the internet.

Zhu Tian

KLIA... Formula 1... Do you know those places?? They are locating in Sepang which is now implementing a big project name Sepang Goldcoast. I’m zhu tian and I come from Sepang. I’m now 21 years old and study in UTAR Sg Long campus. I’m a quiet girl but sometimes will be quite noisy especially with those people that I more familiar such as my family and best friend. My hobbies are listen to music, watching television, playing my mini “piano”, playing badminton and playing games. I will play PS games with my brother at home when during weekend but I’m always the loser.

Top 5 websites that I visited the most are google, yahoo, facebook, friendster and 8TV. First, I will launch google website to find information when doing assignments. Sometimes, google is the only website that I launch all the day especially at the time when the assignment submission due date is near. Besides that, I will visit to yahoo website to check my mails and reading some funny or relaxing story. I can learn and know more extra things from the mails that my friends sent to me. Facebook is the website that I like to visit especially when I feel boring and stressful. It is because I can play games inside facebook such as pet society and know more friends from there. Pet society is the game that I like the most inside facebook because it is funny and quite interesting. Inside the game, you can design your pet’s looks, buy furniture for your pet and feed foods to it and also can have some activities with your pet. Then, I will launch friendster website to check any comments or message that my friends leave it to me.

From there, I can know other peoples also and I have joined some clubs inside there such as fans club for my idol – Nicholas Teo. Moreover, 8TV website is another website for me to visit for relaxing. I will watch TV series from there that I miss out from television. Sometimes I busy doing my works, so I will not catch up from television. 8TV website is my choice to watch the episode that I miss out and I can watch it anytime.

Besides that, top 5 internet activities for me are playing games, checking mails, chit- chat with friends, listening music and finding information. That’s all about me. Thank you and welcome for those who visit my blog.

Kelvin Cheah

Hi, my name is Kelvin Cheah and I am only 21 years old this year which is the year I am going to graduate. I am year 3 semesters 1 student from accounting course in Utar and this will be a challenging year for me since I’m aiming to pass my result with flying color. In this semester, I ‘m particularly interested in E-Commerce subject since nowadays the world is all about technology.

Let me share with you five of my favorite websites. The first website that I am going to recommend to you is dictionary.com. In this website, besides searching for the words you don’t understand, it also provide pronunciation of the word for you to learn how to pronoun it properly. I always refer to it whenever I have any difficulty in any English word. Then, the second website that I am going to share is wikianswers.com. In this website, you can try post whatever questions that you are unclear of and your question will be post base on it category. There is a high probability that your question will be answer by some experts in the category of your question. The third website I would like to share with you is www.6621.com. I often used to listen and download songs from the website. For entertainment, I think www.mofunzone.com is a good website for you if you like to play games a lot. Lastly, the website that I highly recommended is www.photofunia.com which you must visit it because it is a very fun website with the special effect you can make with your photo.
Besides surfing those websites, the top five activities that I usually do using internet are checking my e-mail daily, chatting with my friend through msn, online banking, listen music and download latest movie. I can spend my time whole day with just sitting in front of the computer doing all those stuffs.

So, if you find that you have any similar interest that you would like to share with me, please add my msn (manchester814@hotmail.com) to be my friend.