In this article the authors identify reliability, privacy, and security as critical issues in electronic commerce. In other work, designers of information systems have identified other issues as critical, such as the ability to provide offline verification. It is widely agreed that an electronic currency system must provide divisibility, scalability in number of users, conservation of money or tamper resistance, exchangeability or interoperability, and availability. However, by returning to the fundamental definition of money and the essential nature of electronic information systems, the authors argue that privacy, reliability, and security are also critical issues. It is argued that these issues are particularly important in Internet commerce. The authors conclude by noting how some proposed Internet commerce systems provide, or fail to provide, security, reliability, and privacy.
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