Electronic commerce is the process of exchanging (selling and buying) through computer networks. There are a variety of examples on e-commerce on the internet, for instance: Amazon and E-bay. E-commerce may take different forms depending on the buyer or the seller. It includes: Business to Consumer (B2C), Busines to Business (B2B), Government to Business (G2B), Government to Consumer (G2C) and Consumer to Consumer (C2C).
B2C B2B
Benefits of e-commerce:
1. Overcome geographical limitations2. Gain new customers wth search engine visibility3. Lower costs4. Locate the product quicker5. Eliminate travel time and cost6. Provide comparison shopping7. enable deals, bargains, coupons, and group buying8. Provide alot of iformation9. create targeted communication10. Remain open all the time
A computer telecommunication network connects computers together in order to allow them to work together and exchange data. In computer networks, networked computing devices pass data to each other along data connections. It provides flexibility to the ogranization departments and improves the effeciency of its processes. Generally there are different sizes of a computer networks. There are home networks that offers the smallest access area compared to the other two types. Families usually use this size within their houses. The other wider size is national computer network. And last but not least, is the global computer network. This wide network covers an unlimited geographical area!
formatting,
and displaying information via a client/server architecture.
Data are the raw input collected from various sources in carious topics. Without the rearrangement and sorting of these data, they are meaningless. Data are organized by specialized employees into useful information to be used in vital decision making. To create such useful information, employees use databases.
The use of these databases may reduce some previously occuring problems like: data redundancy, data isolation and inconsistency. What is mare, it also enables management to ling the same information to the intire organization and keep it more secured from theft. In addition, it provide greater convinience as data can be accessed easier and faster.
Due to the massive develoments in information technology especially the internet, information security has become of a greater magnitude. Information is the most valuable resource to any association. Hence, organizations pay large amounts of money to protect their information systems.
In the last few years, the number of cyber attacks have sky rocketed with the increase in the number of hackers. Lately many factors made it easier to practice hacking including the cheaper prices of computer, faster devices and smaller and easier to carry around. Moreover, skills needed to become a hacker are decreasing.
With the internet gaining such popularity, privacy has become a thing of the past. People have come to accept that strangers can view personal information about them on social networks such as facebook, and companies and the government are constantly viewing peoples’ activity online for a variety of reasons. The government has attempted to help the consumer regain their privacy online by passing the Consumer Internet Privacy Protection Act of 1997, although it is difficult to enforce and has become outdated with the fast-moving tendency of the constantly changing internet. Some companies including yahoo and google have come under scrutiny about violating privacy laws, and the government is now pushing do-not-track technology to be implemented on these websites, ensuring the companies cannot track peoples’ location (Lyons). With the explosion of the internet, social networks breach peoples’ privacy everyday and are rampant with online predators, the only solutions are to make privacy policies shorter and easier to understand and make privacy settings more readily available.
Social networks such as facebook have become increasingly popular in the last few years, allowing strangers to view anyone’s’ profile and systematically eliminating privacy from those who choose to join such sites. Upon joining, you are prompted to agree to an about 30-page long privacy policy, that most people don’t even read three words of. This is a serious problem, as most people don’t know the extent the social networking site can share and exploit your information, or how they can use it in other ways. Moreover, by default, the privacy settings are made so any stranger that searches your name can view most information about yourself, able to see about 90% of your information before even friending you.
In nearly every corner of the world, from Mumbai to Madrid, one cannot enter a café or walk down the street without seeing someone talking, texting, or surfing the Internet on their cell phones, laptops or tablet PCs. Information Technology has become ubiquitous and is changing every aspect of how people live their lives.
Information Technology
IT is a driving factor in the process of globalization. Improvements in the early 1990s in computer hardware, software, and telecommunications greatly increased people’s ability to access information and economic potential. While advancements in Internet-based tools over the past five to ten years, such as social networking websites, twitter, and other Web2.0 applications are changing the way people use and share information for personal, political, and commercial purposes. These developments have facilitated efficiency gains in all sectors of the economy. IT drives the innovative use of resources to promote new products and ideas across nations and cultures, regardless of geographic location. Creating efficient and effective channels to exchange information, IT has been the catalyst for global integration.
Products based upon, or enhanced by, information technology are used in nearly every aspect of life in contemporary industrial societies. The spread of IT and its applications has been extraordinarily rapid. Just 30 years ago, for example, the use of desktop personal computers was still limited to a fairly small number of technologically advanced people. The overwhelming majority of people still produced documents with typewriters, which permitted no manipulation of text and offered no storage.
Years ago, large and bulky mobile telephones were carried only by a small number of users in just a few U.S. cities. In some developing countries, mobile phones are used by more people than the fixed line telephone network.
But perhaps most dramatically, just fifteen years ago, only scientists were using the Internet, the World Wide Web was not up and running, and the browsers that help users navigate the Web had not even been invented yet. Today, of course, the Internet and the Web have transformed commerce, creating entirely new ways for retailers and their customers to make transactions, for businesses to manage the flow of production inputs and market products, and for job seekers and job recruiters to find one another. According to ITU World Report 2013, the total amount of users reached more than 2.7 billion (39 percent of the world’s population) by 2013.
The news industry was dramatically transformed by the emergence of numerous Internet-enabled news-gathering and dissemination outlets. Websites, blogs, instant messaging systems, e-mail, social networking sites and other Internet-based communication systems have made it much easier for people with common interests to to connect, exchange information, and collaborate with each other. Education at all levels is continually transforming thanks to innovations in communication, education, and presentation software. Websites now serve as a primary source of information and analysis for the masses.
Globalization accelerates the change of technology. Every day it seems that a new technological innovation is being created. The pace of change occurs so rapidly many people are always playing catch up, trying to purchase or update their new devices. Technology is now the forefront of the modern world creating new jobs, innovations, and networking sites to allow individuals to connect globally. The timeline below shows the rapid transformation of how technology has accelerated within the last 20 years to 2012.
