What is electronic commerce or e-commerce?
Although electronic commerce, in the widest sense, has been defined as ‘any business activity utilizing electronic communication channels for data transfer’, modern usage is more related to commerce conducted over the Internet or over networks utilizing internet technologies; that is, extranets, intranets and virtual private networks using internet protocols. (See below for definitions of these terms.) For the purpose of this FAQ, we will regard e-commerce specifically as: “the process of electronically conducting business over the Internet — or networks using internet protocols — with particular reference to innovative marketing, order and payment systems, and administrative integration.
