CORPORATE BLOGGING

BLOGS AS MARKETING COMMUNICATION TOOLS

Research suggests that customers value a unique, more personalized message, and marketers continue to seek opportunities that will deliver that message in innovative and interesting ways. For example, GM has several different categories of blogs, including the Fastlane blog, about cars and trucks, where GM leaders discuss their opinions and provide feedback; the GM tuner blog, discusses racing and other events where GM products may be featured; the Cadillac blog is the “story of two engineers who test drive the new Cadillac CTS all over the world” . A quick scan of these blogs and opinions posted at the blogsite reveals the very targeted nature of GM's blogs.

WHY COMPANIES SHOULD BLOG

Many users of corporate blogs cite the unfiltered nature of blogs as a key benefit. Blogs appear to humanize a faceless business, and give customers insight into the company. Furthermore, a well-designed blog also gives the company insight into the customer and his or her thinking. More importantly, since many blogs are anonymous and the postings are almost always unsolicited, the information that most people provide is candid and uncensored. This unfiltered look at the customer is perhaps the biggest advantage for the marketer. In addition, the interactive nature of blogs allows a company to participate in its own market research, and to respond to feedback provided by the customers.

As for generating negative publicity, it is important to realize that, with the availability of electronic media, people will share comments about their experiences with a company regardless of the existence of a blog. If these comments can be solicited and responded to in a company-sponsored blog, the company can better control or manage the information. More importantly, it can respond to appropriate criticism or accolades in a fast and effective manner.

Below is a video that explains the importance of corporate blogging

Review a local e-commerce site

One of the local e-commerce websites is the http://www.mytns.com.my/. This is about skin care product website. It is a very convenience website for the consumers to purchase good without visiting the traditional store.


This website provides many services to the customers such as if the customers can check out whether the product suitable for themselves or not, they can ask expert adviser or check for the beauty specialist before buy the goods. http://www.ozwin.com.my/ozwinshop/module_main/asktheexpert.asp Every product that displayed on the website also has shown its own description. So customer can order the product based on the description. http://guides.clickthecity.com/metro/?p=1807 Besides that, this website is also provides a space to let consumers to post their comment for the particular product, so the new customer may can refer to that comment. http://www.ozwin.com.my/ozwinshop/module_main/feedback_enquiry.asp The most attracting of this website is there has a guide line that showing step-by-step to guide you how to e-shopping, check-out and how to pay for it. It helps a lot for the consumer that not so similar with e-commerce website or the first time user. http://www.ozwin.com.my/ozwinshop/module_main/step_by_step_guide.asp

In my opinion, the disadvantage of this website is they only allow the credit card holder to purchase the product such as visa and master card. For those who are debit card holder and prepaid card holder are not allowing to order through internet. On the other hands, this website only allows the members to look for their product. They only post this month promotion product for the public to view it. It means that, the customer need to register as their member then only allow viewing the entire product.

I

E-government in Malaysia: Its implementation so far and citizen's adoption strategies

The e-Government means that use of internet technology as a platform for exchanging information, providing services or transaction with citizens businesses and other arms of government in order to improve internal efficiency. The primary delivery models are Government-to-Citizen or Government-to-Customer (G2C), Government-to-Business (G2B) and Government-to-Government (G2G) and Government-to-Employees (G2E).

The e-government in Malaysia was initiated by the introduction of the Multimedia Super Corridor (MSC) in year 1996 and it was launched to lead the country into the Information Age. It has to improve the convenience, accessibility and quality of interactions with citizens and businesses. Beside this, it also will improve information flows and processes within government to improve the speed and quality of policy development, coordination and enforcement.

There have 7 pilot flagship applications introduced in MSC. The objectives of those flagship applications are to jump start and go faster of MSC, to enhance national competitiveness, to creation of high value jobs and to make MSC become a national hub. The 7 main projects are:
(1) Project Monitoring System (SPP II)
(2) Human Resource Management Information System (HRMIS)
(3) Generic Office Environment (GOE)
(4) Electronic Procurement (EP)
(5) Electronic Services (E-services)
(6) Electronic Labour Exchange (ELX)
(7) E-Syariah

The factor that will lead to a successful to implementation is E-government requires leadership. Leadership is required in the early stage of e-government to be able to gain acceptance of concepts and benefits. Beside this, leadership also required to manage change and continue support for the e-government project.

The implementation of e-government increases the need for the ICT-related skills in government. The skills required are not only technical but also the decision making skills. The managers must be able to lead the organization’s IT department and integrate the ICT strategy.

Beside this, monitoring and evaluate are essential to effective e-government because the assessment are useful to decision-makers with priority to the assessment of demand, benefits and service quality.

In Malaysia, the uses of e-government is not that much because the citizen are not familiar with the ICT skills so that for the citizen’s adoption strategies is the government should communicate the benefits of e-government services to citizens. Emphasizing those advantages will lead to higher levels of perceived usefulness and relative advantages. Beside this, the government can increase the perceived compatibility by making the adoption of online services as faultless as possible because these will significant citizens intention to use the e-government services.

Things to Take Note to Prevent E-auction Fraud when a Consumer Participating in an E-auction

Auction is a market mechanism that allows buyers making bids and sellers placing offers. On the other hands, auction is also a process of buying and selling goods or services by offering them up for bid, taking bids, and then selling the item to the winning bidder. The word “auction” is derived from the Latin augere, which means “to increase” or “augment”. Auctions can be categorized into primary types of auction (English auction, Dutch auction, Sealed first-price auction and Vickrey auction) and second type of auction (All-pay auction, Buyout auction, Combinatorial auction, Non-reserve auction and Reserve auction). The most popular types of auction is e-auction.

Here, I would like to share some tips that are very useful to prevent e-auction fraud when participating in an e-auction.

1. You do not simply disclose your personal data. When you receive any email from anyone which required your personal data for example credit card number, account number or passwords, you do not just send the data required without verification of who is the one requires your personal data.
2. You are advised to ask the seller when delivery can be expected if not specified in the listing, and about warranty, exchange or return of merchandise you find unsatisfactory.
3. You must read the extra information and the listing about shopping and handing fees carefully to avoid the unexpected cost. If there is no specific information provided, you may want to clarify before you start bidding.
4. Before you starting to bid, you should make all things clear, such as you must know how the internet auction work, what your obligation are as a buyer, and seller’s obligations are.
5. You must aware of the rating of the particular sellers. If the rating for such seller is bad or negative, then you are not suppose to bid with the particular seller.

----------------pRepAreD:Lyon

Electronic Currency

Nowadays, a lot of companies look forward to the electronic currency trading. Electronic currency is also known as e-money, electronic money, electronic cash, digital money, digital cash or digital currency. It means that the transaction between the company and the user is using the computer networks. There have a lot of success companies to implement the business by using this system, such as Hong Kong’s octopus card system, which started as a transit payment system and has grown into widely used electronic card system.

Electronic currency is far from the traditional ways of payment like banks, cheques, paper money and coins. E-currency allows users through internet or wireless devices to pay directly from their bank accounts by electronic such as micropayment, mobile payment (m-payment) or person-to-person (p2p) payments.

One of the examples of the e-currency is the PayPal. PayPal is the service allows anyone to pay in any way they prefer, including through credit cards, bank accounts, buyer credit or account balances, without sharing financial information. The background of the PayPal can refer to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PayPal. The advantages and disadvantages of PayPal can refer to the http://www.merchant-account-service.com/paypal.html.

EBay is the one of the company opens up PayPal to developer. It is because PayPal allows buyers to pay instantly for eBay purchases. Buyer's like PayPal because they can quickly and easily pay for eBay purchases online. The more detail of the eBay using the PayPal, can refer to http://news.google.com/news?hl=en&q=paypal&um=1&ie=UTF-8&sa=X&oi=news_result&resnum=11&ct=title.

There have some advantage and disadvantage by using the electronic currency in our life. User can refer to this http://www.iit.edu/~peacjen/cs485/ecash2.htm to determine the safeguard by using the electronic currency.

Credit Card Debts: Causes & Preventions

CAUSES of CREDIT CARD DEBTS
The issue of credit-card debt among college students has received increasing attention recently because students often receive incentives, such as t-shirts or mugs, to apply for cards, and requirements, such as previous credit history, are often waived.

Colleges, too, have embraced the idea of credit cards among their students which caused students to fall to the credit cards trap. 77 percent of colleges reported accepting credit cards for payment of tuition. Further, many colleges allow companies to solicit students and alumni with imprint cards, cards personalized with the institution's logo. Credit card companies often are allowed to seek business on campus.

Other students may get into debt because of the assumption that they will easily get out of debt upon graduation from college. Graduate students, although concerned about their debt, viewed it as necessary for paying bills and staying in school. Unfortunately, this belief that debt will be quickly repaid can be misguided. Today's college students have grown up in a culture saturated with credit cards, but may view credit as something abstract or equivalent to earnings.

Another factor related to student credit card debt is one's attitude toward money. Teenagers experience "premature affluence" because of their high levels of discretionary income and almost no bills. Some teens may become used to a certain lifestyle and not know how to adjust when bills increase in college. Further, some students may be more comfortable with debt. Higher levels of debt in college students were related to greater tolerance of debt. Students may be willing to tolerate debt so that they can maintain the comfortable lifestyle to which they are accustomed.

PREVENTION of CREDIT CARD DEBTS
Clearly, consumer debt is a problem for a significant number of students. Many students lack the knowledge of how to handle credit and have attitudes that suggest that debt is acceptable. What then can be done?

First, education is the key. However, education must go beyond providing information. It is important to educate students about credit cards. Students need to know basic guidelines for eliminating and staying out of debt such as knowing credit card balances and interest rates, knowing that transferring high-interest rate balances to lower rate cards provides instant savings (if the high rate cards are immediately cut up), and that debit cards and checks allow students to only spend what they actually have.

Colleges should be encouraged to develop their own programs or modify existing high school programs to increase awareness and financial skills. A logical place for such a program would be in conjunction with new student orientation, although programming should be offered throughout the year and for all students.

Education and awareness alone may not be enough to reduce the problem of student credit card debt. Changing the process by which students obtain credit cards on campus is another important component. For example, a recommendation is that students not be allowed to receive free gifts for applying until after they have read a credit card educational brochure. This help to prevent any unnecessary credit card usage and unawareness of the high interest repayable if there’s default.

While colleges are in a position to teach credit card savvy to students, that task is not the sole responsibility of--nor should it begin with--the institution of higher education. Ideally, money management techniques would be first taught in the home with relevant programming implemented at the elementary and high school levels. The issue at hand is a societal problem, which requires a concerted effort by parents, educators, elected officials et al.

The Application of Pre-paid Cash Card for Consumers

“Prepaid card”, do the phrase sound familiar to all of you? For sure, it is believed that whoever holding mobile phone with them will know that phrase very well. But that prepaid card is not similar as the prepaid cash card that use to purchase of goods. As the prepaid cash cards have been introduced, they are taking the world of consumer spending by storm.

Today, there is a shown of rapid growth on using prepaid cards in certain payment part. In general, it is going to replace paper-based payment instrument. Basically, prepaid card is a card that allow buyer to transfer funds that are accessed electronically when goods and services are bought by recipients provided that there is a restriction on the types of merchants or products that can be bought. However, even if a payment part is ideal for prepaid products, adoption of them will depend on the ability of providers of these products to get all transactors on board. Besides that, prepaid card holders also allow to make electronic payment even though no relationship with financial institutions. Nevertheless, prepaid cards allow recipients to receive funds and spend them where the prepaid value is accepted. In some cases, the prepaid value can be converted to cash. Whether purchasers, recipients, and sellers of goods and services adopt a new payment choice is dependent on costs and benefits of prepaid products versus existing payment choices. However, it is believed that most of you know that cost of prepaid cards could also mean that consumers with nowhere else to go and whoever cannot afford it, are being forced to pay by using their own money since prepaid card providers are not making money.

Recently, consumers are more preferred on the existing payment mechanisms, such as cash, cheque and credit and debit cards, than prepaid card. Prepaid cards are prefunded; their value either resides on the card or at a remote database. At the beginning stage, prepaid cards were introduced to compete with small value cash transactions. At the same time, prepaid cards have been effective as a cash substitute in closed environments, such as university, campuses, coffee shop and so on, but prepaid cards have not been able to gain significant market penetration as a cash substitute. (Chakravorti, 2004; Van Hove, 2004a, 2005)

On the other hand, there have been quite a few applications of retailer specific prepaid cards that have been successful. Those specific prepaid card did provide benefits to both consumers and merchants. Those benefits to consumers include convenience, speed and possible rewards, such as discount on future purchases and those benefits to merchants include receiving cash in advance of the delivery of goods and services, increased loyalty, potentially faster payment processing at the point of sale and potentially lower payment processing costs. Yet, if the benefits are greater than the cost, the retailer may pay customers to purchase and use its prepaid card. Now the market for the prepaid card is till up and coming, certain prepaid applications are growing rapidly. There is a difficulty in collecting accurate usage and volume of prepaid payments caused by the diversity of issuers and applications and lack of an established uniform definition of a prepaid payment product. An analysis is conducted from year 1999 to 2005, the value of prepaid card purchases have been boosted. Moreover, the growth of prepaid applications has been faster than what has been expected on it.

Example of company that using prepaid card for consuming.

Starbucks Coffee Company (abstracted from article)
Starbucks Coffee Company, the worldwide chain of coffee houses, introduced a prepaid card in November2001, primarily to reduce the processing costs of previously issued paper gift certificates. Gift giving has been a critical factor to the success of the card. Around 60% to 80% of the activity on these cards results from users receiving the cards as gifts. As consumers migrate from cash payments to electronic alternatives, Starbucks has been able to lower some of its payment processing costs. Transaction costs are important to Starbucks because the company receives millions of payments monthly and most are valued at less than $5 each. Consumers use signature based debit cards or credit cards for up to 25 percent of their purchases (Chakravorti and Jankowski, 2005).While Starbucks’ cost of accepting cash payments is nearly one-third of accepting credit cards or signature based debit cards, the cost of its prepaid card is less than cash. Starbucks prepaid cards have enabled the coffee house chain to increase revenue by attracting new customers and enhancing the loyalty of existing customers. Unlike most consumers who discard their gift cards after their initial use, one out of three Starbucks card holders reloads value on the cards, suggesting these cards are more convenient for some Starbucks’ customers than other payment options. The company reports that electronic payments, including prepaid cards, provide some speed of service benefits. The coffee house chain is able to accept prepaid card payments faster than cash, thereby reducing customers’ wait times.

After an example, sure make you more understand on how the prepaid cards going to benefit both retailer and the card holder. Prepaid card initially introduced to avoid cash transactions and now continue to replace with cheques. Although prepaid cards are able to serve some key payment part, such as gift, employer initiated and government benefits programs, it is unlikely that they could significantly substitute for electronic account-based or credit-based payment products. Prepaid applications potentially provide a more cost-effective means to transfer funds by do not need to access through transactions accounts. The growth of prepaid cards is dependent on transactors’ benefits and their willingness to pay for the provision of services. Adoption of prepaid cards in niche markets may result in increased familiarity and confidence among payment system participants to spur even wider adoption of such products for other payment section.

"Prepaid cards are not for everyone," says Ken Howes. Therefore, there is not necessary to everyone to have prepaid card. "People have a choice about whether the benefits of having the card are worth the fees, and they are not forced upon people." But he says transparency and regulation are crucial to prevent "a competition in the prepaid arena".

------------pRepaReD bY: LyOn

The application of 3rd party certification programme in Malaysia: VeriSign

VeriSign helps those companies and consumers to engage in trusted communications and commerce and its leading Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) Certificate Authority enabling secure e-commerce, communications, and interactions for Websites, intranets and extranets.

VeriSign is the most trusted mark on the internet because its secures more than 1 million web servers worldwide. The world's 40 largest banks and over 93% of Fortune 500 companies choose VeriSign SSL certificates such as ebay, PayPal, Pioneer and PC World.

The successful key of e-commerce is gain the trust from online customers in order to increase theirs sales and profit so that the e-commerce business should increase customer confidence at the transaction time. Normally, the online shoppers will cincerns about the credit card fraud,k identity theft, sharing personal information and spyware because the fraund and identity theft have created an awesome effect on e-commerce. For examples, there only has 65% of online consumers shop at sites they know and trust but there also haven 65% of onlie shoppers have discarded online shopping because they did not trust on the transaction.

Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) protects the websites and makes it easy for the website visitors to trust and gain the confidence. An SSL Certificate enables encryption of sensitive information during the online transactions and contains unique, authenticated information about the certificate owner. Besides this, the Certificate Authority verifies the identity of the certificate owner when it is issued.

How SSL works?
(1) An SSL Certificate establishes a private communication channel and enabling encryption of the data during transmission. When encryption proceed to the data immediately will create an envelope for message privacy. Besides this, each SSL Certificate consists of a public key and a private key. The public key is used to encrypt information while the private key is used to decode it. When a web browser points to a secured domain, a SSL will grip authenticates the server ( website) and the client (web browser).

(2) Every VeriSign SSL Certificate is created for a particular server in a specific domain for a verified busienss entity. When the SSL grip occurs, the browser requires authentication information from the server by clicking the closed padlock in the browser window or SSL trust marks. In high-security browsers, the authenticated organization name is prominently displayed and the address bar turns green when an Extended Validation SSL Certificate is detected. If the information does not match or the certificate has expired, the browser displays an error message or warning.

(3) The SSL Certificate is issued by a trusted source known as the Certificate Authority (CA). VeriSign verifies the existence of the business, the ownership of domain name and authority to apply for the certificate. Besides this, VeriSign Extended Validation SSL Certificates meet the highest standard in the Internet security industry for website authentication. The high-security web browser's address bar turns green and show the name of organization that owns the SSL Certificate.

By using the VeriSign, its can helps to improve customers trust and increase confidence of consumers because visitors will feel more secure to make their transaction and also to confirm the identity of the website owner.

For more information, please refer to http://www.verisign.com/

Above information is adopted from http://www.verisign.com/

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HOW TO SAFEGUARD OUR PERSONAL AND FINANCIAL DATA??????

Personal and financial data are important for an individual. When personal and financial data have been stolen, these data might be abused by the data theft due with illegal transactions. Therefore, we must be very careful in protecting these data and aware of the possibility to become the next victim. The following are some tips that i would like to share with you all in helping you guys to safeguard his personal and financial data:

• Use a credit card with a small limit for online purchases or online shopping. It is because the likelihood that a dishonest sales clerk to use your credit card information. If the card you use for these purchases has a low credit limit, at least thieves won't be able to bulk credit purchase at a single time.
  


• Review your monthly statements. Try to keep your receipts and thoroughly check your account statements as soon as they arrive. So next time when you are going to shopping, don’t you forget to put your receipts in your wallet. By reviewing your monthly statements not only will alert you to possible fraudulent charges, you may also find legitimate charges for services that are either redundant or no longer necessary.

• Don't use the same password everywhere. It is believed that almost people are using the same password everywhere. The email address and password combination could get the same thieves into every account you hold if you routinely use the same email address and password at all locations.



• Avoid saving credit card info, etc on shopping sites. Most of the websites today, such as Amazon, eBay, Orbitz, give their buyers the option to save their credit card information so that they don’t need to retype in all the information each time they want to buy something. That’s great for them, easy money and more sales, but their buyers’ credit card numbers and bank account numbers may be hacked and download by someone. It is just taking an extra minute to type your information all over again, but it is better to not save your information on any shopping site.

• Keep your personal and sensitive data off your computer. Try your best to keep bank account numbers, passwords, etc off your computer. If you want to keep it in electronic format for easy access, that’s fine, simply buy a flash drive or pendrive and store all the sensitive files there. Keep it in a safe place and if you need to refer to the documents, then just plug in your drive.
  


• Choose your PIN wisely. While you want to select something you will remember, you don’t want it to be something that a clever thief could figure out just by learning your birth date or your child's name. A combination of uppercase and lowercase letters, numbers, and symbols will offer you more security.



• Protect your computer's security. Use as many tools as you can (anti-virus software, spyware, firewalls, and passwords) to guard your computer information from being hacked by hacker.



• Always think before providing information when solicited. If you ever sign up an email that required any personal information, make sure that you go to the website yourself manually and provide only necessary information about yourself. A web site exists does not mean it is legitimate! If you’ve never heard of the site before, just type it into Google once and see if anything like “XXX IS A SCAM” pops up!



• Keep your e-mail private, use encryption. Many people perceived that email is not a secure medium. It is said so because email can be easily accessed and read by unintended third parties. Presently, there exist technologies that allow you to encrypt your messages before you send in order to protect your privacy.

• Turn your computer off or on standby when you’re not using it. This is kind of tip, if your computer is not on, then what can a hacker, virus, or anything else possibly does? Nothing! So make sure you shut down or put your computer into sleep mode when you are not there.



• Don't trust threats. Your bank will never contact you via email with any threat of legal action or security breach. They also won’t offer you earn money via email. If there is some threat for action in an email message, assume it is bunk. Otherwise call the business that supposedly sent it and get customer service on the line. If you are still not convinced the email isn’t real. The operator will provide you information about your account and will be happy to make you comfortable with your account status.
  


• Lock your computer at home and at the office. When you are out for lunch from your office, it is believed that most of the computers are just on without a password-protected screen saver, it might be easier for a co-worker to get into your computer and look through your data. Therefore, it is better to lock your compute or put password on your screen saver.



• 
  
  

• Don’t use the same usernames. It also wise to use different usernames when possible. It is an advice to pick a unique username for your bank, eBay, your credit card company’s site and other website that has personal financial data about yourself.

Failing to protect your data is just as bad as leaving your door unlocked, your windows wide open, and a sign on the mat, saying, "Burglars, come on in."

No need to make the thieves' jobs any easier. Though they're not foolproof, these simple tips will help ensure that your personal and financial data is a whole lot safer.

---------->prepared by: Lyon :)

Phishing

The word of "phising" initially emerged in 1990s. The early hackers often use 'ph" to replace "f" to produce new words in the hacker's community, since they usually hack by phones.

Phishing is a new word produced from ‘fishing’, it refers to the act that the attacker allure users to visit a faked Web site by sending them faked e-mails (or instant messages), and stealthily get victim’s personal information such as user name, password, and national security ID, etc. This information then can be used for future target advertisements or even identity theft attacks (e.g., transfer money from victims’ bank account).

In general, phishing attacks are performed with the following four steps:

1. Phishes set up a counterfeited Web site which looks exactly like the legitimate Web site, including setting up the web server, applying the DNS server name, and creating the web pages similar to the destination Web site, etc.


2. Send large amount of spoofed e-mails to target users in the name of those legitimate companies and organizations, trying to convince the potential victims to visit their Web sites.


3. Receivers receive the e-mail, open it, click the spoofed hyperlink in the e-mail, and input the required information.


4. Phishers steal the personal information and perform their fraud such as transferring money from the victims’ account.

Although the attacker has the method to phishing the user, user also has the several (technical or non technical) ways to prevent it:

1. Educate users to understand how phishing attacks work and be alert when phishing-alike e-mails are received;


2. Use legal methods to punish phishing attackers;


3. Use technical methods to stop phishing attackers. In this paper, we only focus on the third one. Technically, if we can cut off one or several of the steps that needed by a phishing attack, we then successfully prevent that attack.

In what follows, we briefly review these approaches.

Detect and block the phishing Web sites in time:

• If we can detect the phishing Web sites in time, we can block the sites and prevent phishing attacks.

Enhance the security of the web sites:

• The business Web sites such as the Web sites of banks can take new methods to guarantee the security of users’ personal information. There have one method to enhance this security is to use hardware devices. For example, the Barclays bank provides a hand-held card reader to the users. Before shopping in the net, users need to insert their credit card into the card reader, and input their (personal identification number) PIN code, then the card reader will produce a onetime security password, users can perform transactions only after the right password is input.


• Another method is to use the biometrics characteristic (e.g. voice, fingerprint, iris, etc.) for user authentication. For example, Paypal had tried to replace the single password verification by voice recognition to enhance the security of the Web site.

Block the phishing e-mails by various spam filters:

• Phishers generally use e-mails as ‘bait’ to allure potential victims. SMTP (Simple Mail Transfer Protocol) is the protocol to deliver e-mails in the Internet. Information that related to sender, such as the name and email address of the sender, route of the message, etc, can be counterfeited in SMTP. Thus, the attackers can send out large amounts of spoofed e-mails which are seemed from legitimate organizations. Therefore, if anti-spam systems can determine whether an e-mail is sent by the announced sender (Am I Whom I Say I Am?), the phishing attacks will be decreased dramatically.

Install online anti-phishing software in user’s computers:

• Despite all the above efforts, it is still possible for the users to visit the spoofed Web sites. As a last defense, users can install anti-phishing tools in their computers. The antiphishing tools in use today can be divided into two categories: blacklist or whitelist based and rule-based.

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

Viruses, hacker attacks and other cyber threats are now a part of daily life. Malware spreading throughout the Internet, hackers stealing confidential data and mailboxes flooded with spam are the price we pay for computing convenience. Any unprotected computer or network is vulnerable. Real vulnerable indeed.

For instance, home users can lose valuable personal data with one click to the wrong website. Children trading games also exchange viruses unknowingly. You receive an email requesting an update to your payment details, and a hacker gains access to your bank account. A backdoor is installed on your machine, and your PC becomes a zombie, spewing out spam.

On top of that, it's not just home users who suffer. For businesses of all sizes, the risks are manifold. Crucial data distorted by viruses, financial data misappropriated by cyber criminals, and mountains of spam reducing ROI on human and technological resources.

Some of the popular threats these days are crimewares, viruses, hackers, spam, spyware, and the list continues to grow larger. To start with, crimeware is malicious software used to initiate a crime that is typically Internet-based. During the past two years, crimeware attacks have increased at a far greater rate than the normal virus. International gangs of virus writers, hackers and spammers are joining forces to steal information and collect huge profits illegally. For example, a bank login ID and password may be collected and sent back to an attacker. The attacker typically will use this information in order to collect illegal profits.

The term “virus” on the other hand is often loosely used in reference to any type of malicious program, or it is used to describe any negative event that a malicious program causes to a host system. In the simplest terms, a virus is defined as program code that replicates from one host file to another.

“Hacking” a computer which is another threat is the act of exploiting vulnerable operating system functions, applications, and peripherals to gain unsolicited access to a computer or network. For example, a phisher who is also called a hacker may send an e-mail using the façade of a major bank, credit card or E-money service like PayPal. The email will not only look official, but will also have an official-looking network domain name and return address. The body will contain an innocuous message such as: "Your account information requires updating".

Spam is the equivalent of physical junk mail and unsolicited telemarketing phone calls. It has become one of the largest nuisances to computer users for both home and business users. n 2003 and 2004 spammers sent the majority of spam messages from machines belonging to unsuspecting users. Spammers use malware to install Trojans on users' machines, leaving them open to remote use. Methods used to penetrate victim machines include:

• Trojan droppers and downloaders injected into pirate software which is distributed via file sharing P2P networks (Kazaa, eDonkey etc.).
• Exploiting vulnerabilities in MS Windows and popular applications such as IE & Outlook.
• Email worms

Spware is as those that “impair users" control over material changes that affect their user experience, privacy, or system security; use of their system resources, including what programs are installed on their computers; or collection, use, and distribution of their personal or otherwise sensitive information.” “Spyware” is something of a grey area, so there’s no copy-book definition for it. However, as the name suggests, it’s often loosely defined as software that is designed to gather data from a computer and forward it to a third party without the consent or knowledge of the computer’s owner. This includes monitoring key strokes, collecting confidential information (passwords, credit card numbers, PIN numbers, etc.), harvesting e-mail addresses, or tracking browsing habits. There’s a further by-product of spyware where such activities inevitably affect network performance, slowing down the system and thereby affecting the whole business process.

Although all these seem frightening, there is a way out too. Online security is for the purpose of protecting e-commerce customers and their information by continuing to enhance e-commerce systems and processes as e-commerce transactions evolves. Because no single solution can ensure online security, a layered security approach with industry-leading solutions had been developed. Two major objectives in selecting the right electronic safeguards are:

• Protecting customers’ informations and assets.
• Minimizing customer impact while providing multiple layers of protection wherever customer transactions call for added security.

Are our data secured by just these online securities? It depends whether the consumers are aware enough about the threat they might faced if necessary steps isn’t taken to prevent them.

An Example of E-Commerce successand its causes...............

eBay .com is managed by an American Internet company called eBay incorporation. It was launched online in 1995. eBay.com is an online auction and shopping website was found in San Jose, California, USA by French-born Iranian computer programmer Pierre Omidyar. .This website allows people and business buy and sell goods and services worldwide. Originally, the site belonged to Echo Bay Technology Group, Omidyar's consulting firm. Omidyar had tried to register the domain name echobay.com (the domain has recently been put up for sale) but found it already taken by the Echo Bay Mines, a gold mining company, so he shortened it to his second choice, eBay.com. eBay.com is a website that originated from U.S. website, it has established localized website in thirty other countries:- Argentina, Australia, Austria, Belgium, Brazil, Canada, China, France, Germany, Hong Kong, India, Ireland, Israel, Italy, Malaysia, mexico, Netherlands, New Zealand, Philippines, Poland, Singapore, South Africa, South Korea, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Taiwan and Turkey.

eBay.com is providing something to everyone. Buyer can buy practically anything at great prices. No matter how latest electronics, designer fashion, rare antique, favorite toy, furniture for your home or even a new car, eBay always provide the best product for the buyer. Almost million of items such as computer, equipment, vehicles and other miscellaneous items are listed, sold and bought daily. But those items that is illegal and violate to eBay Prohibited and Restricted items policies do not allow sold through eBay.com like tobacco, alcohol, drugs, used underwear and dirty used clothing and others. eBay.com on the other hand also offers several types of auctions which are Auction-style listing, Fixed Price format and Dutch Auction. Auction-style listings allow the seller to offer one or more items for sale fir a specified number of days where the seller can establish a reserve price. Instead of choosing the auction-style listing, fixed price format is an another way for auction which allows the seller to offer one or more items for sale at a Buy It Now price. Buyers who agree to pay that price win the auction immediately without submitting a bid. Otherwise dutch auction also allow the seller to offer two or more identical items in the same auction. Bidders can bid for any number from one item up to the total number offered.

The domain eBay.com attracted at least 902 million visitors annually by according to a Complete.com study. This was thrice the numbers of walmart.com. There must be reasons behind that can lead eBay.com is more competitive advantage than walmart.com or other company that is running electronic commerce. The ebay.com provide guaranty to buy and sell with confidence. In addition, eBay.com is one of the safest places to trade online and make sure those buyers’ and sellers’ experience on eBay safe and fund. Moreover, Trust and Safety team work together to provide the great way to complete your purchase or sales. Nevertheless, eBay.com also help for trade with peace of mind by provide feedback system, buyer protection programme and dedicated security centre. That is about the key success for eBay with million of buyers and a safe and easy system, therefore eBay is a great place to sell. SO, WHAT ARE YOU WAITIING FOR!!!!!!

Quickily visit this website for more information about your online transaction:

http://www.ebay.com.my/

-----prepared by: Lyon-----

The failure of Napster and its caused

There are many companies extremely successful in the e-commerce business such as eBay, Amazon.com, Google and so on. On the other hand, there are also a large number of the companies’ failures to maintain their e-commerce. One of the company failures in the e-commerce is Napster.

Napster was a website provided online music file sharing service created by Shawn Fanning while he was attending Northeastern University in Boston and operating between June 1999 and July 2001. It was the first widely-used peer-to-peer sharing service, and it made a major impact on how people, especially university students, used the internet. It is a technology allowed music fans to easily share MP3 format song files with each other.

The primary reason that caused the Napster shut down is because leading to the music industry's accusations of massive copyright violations. In 2000, A&M records and several other recording companies sued Napster for contributory and vicarious copyright infringement under the US Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DCM Act). The music industry made the following claims against Napster:
(1) That its users were directly infringing the plaintiff's copyright;
(2) That Napster was liable for contributory infringement of the plaintiff's copyright; and
(3) That Napster was liable for vicarious infringement of the plaintiff's copyright.

Finally, Napster lost the case and the District Court ordered Napster to monitor the activities of its network and block access to infringing material when notified of that material’s location. Napster unable to do that, and so finally shut down its in July 2001 and declared bankrupt in 2002.

A company actually can avoid the pitfalls that plagued Napster by choosing a corporate culture which would insure that a similar situation doesn’t happen to your company. The companies, who interest to create a successful e-commerce, can entitle into the success company to refer them how to manage their business through internet and take up certain necessary action to maintain it.

Identify and compare the revenue model for Google, Amazon, and eBay.

To plan a portal venture successfully, careful analysis of the revenue models and customer adoption trends is essential. Make a mistake and you are liable to lose millions of dollars. So, what are the different revenue models? There are five basic portal revenue models: 1) access revenues, 2) advertising revenues, 3) subscription revenues, 4) transaction revenues, and 5) micro-transaction revenues. I will explain more on these revenue models when I pin point each of the models for three different companies which go online, Google, Amazon and eBay.

First and foremost, Google is a very famous, established and stable company that goes online. Its revenue models are Google AdWords which is a pay per click advertising program designed to allow the advertisers to present advertisements to the public at the second the people are looking for information related to what the advertiser has to offer.

The more recent revenue model of Google is the Google Publication Ads Program through which they distribute their advertisers’ ads for publication in magazines. Google recognize as revenue the fees charged advertisers when their ads are published in magazines.

Another model Google generate revenue is through Pay per Click Advertising. This model worked in such a way that it sends immediate, targeted traffic to public’s website. It is an online advertising payment model in which payment is based on qualifying click-through. An advertiser has to pay every time his advertisement receives a click. The Advertisers decide the keywords relevant to their offer that should display their advertisement and the maximum amount they are willing to pay per click for that keyword.

More than that,Google AdSense is also another revenue model. Website owners can enroll in this program to enable text, image and, video advertisements on their sites. Revenue is generated on a per-click or per-thousand-ads-displayed basis and the ads are administered by Google.

Furthermore, Google Answers is another revenue model too. Instead of performing a search ourselves users pay someone else to do the same. Customers ask questions, offer a price for an answer, and researchers answer them. Researchers are not Google employees. Prices for questions range from $2 to $200; after a question is answered, Google keeps 25% of the payment, sends the rest to the Researchers.

Last but not least, Froogle, a service from Google that makes it easy to find information about products for sale online. Froogle is a price engine website launched by Google Inc. Froogle is different from most other price engines in that it neither charges any fees for listings, nor accepts payment for products to show up first. Also, it makes no commission on sales. Any company can submit product information (via a “data feed”) and be included in the Froogle engine. Advertising space is available for purchase to be displayed in Froogle in the form of an AdWords ad.

eBay on the other hand generate its revenue from a number of fees.There are fees to list a product and fees when the product sells, plus several optional fees, all based on various factors and scales. For instance, the U.S.-based eBay.com takes $0.20 to $80 per listing and 5.25% or less of the final price.Besides, the Mexican eBay "mercado libre" takes 1% (price of the article × number of articles to be sold), and 4.99% of the final price if there is a successful trade. Other than that, the UK based ebay, it takes from £0.15 to a maximum rate of £3 per £100 for an ordinary listing and from 0.75% to 5.25% of the final price.

In addition, eBay now owns the PayPal payment system which has fees of its own. Revenues from PayPal's transaction fees were $243.9 million, a gain of 51 percent from the year-ago quarter and 145 percent from 2003. And the number of registered PayPal users shot up to 79 million from 50 million a year ago.

Under current U.S. law, a state cannot require sellers located outside the state to collect a sales tax, making deals more attractive to buyers. Although state laws require purchasers to pay sales tax to their own states on out-of-state purchases, most non-professional sellers ignore this requirement. However, most sellers that operate as a full time business do follow state tax regulations on their eBay transactions.However for the tax called Value Added Tax(VAT), eBay requires sellers to include the VAT fees in their listing price and not as an add-on and thus eBay profits by collecting fees based on what governments tax for VAT.

Another interesting aspect of eBay's revenue model is it's somewhat evenly spread out among a number of categories, with one glaring standout. Among the categories delivering more than $1 billion in gross market value are:

• Clothing and accessories -- $3.3 billion
• Consumer electronics -- $3.2 billion
• Computers -- $2.9 billion
• Home and garden -- $2.5 billion
• Books/Movies/Music -- $2.4 billion
• Sports -- $2.1 billion
• Collectibles -- $2.0 million
• Toys -- $1.6 billion
• Jewelry and watches -- $1.5 billion
• Business and industrial -- $1.5 billion
• Cameras and photos -- $1.3 billion

Moreover, the company's current business strategy includes increasing revenue by increasing international trade within the eBay system. eBay has already expanded to over two dozen countries including China and India.

Amazon.com has finished its 13th Christmas season and the results are the best ever season, with its busiest day being December 10. On that day, Amazon customers ordered more than 5.4 million items, which is 62.5 items per second. Amazon Worldwide 2007 (Including results for the US, UK, Germany, France, Japan and Canada) shipped more than 99 percent of orders in time to meet holiday deadlines worldwide and on the peak day this season, Amazon's worldwide fulfilment network shipped over 3.9 million units to over 200 countries.

Amazon.co.uk received orders for over 950,000 items on its busiest day in the run up to Christmas this year – at a rate of 11 orders per second – exceeding all previous sales records. At its busiest, Amazon.co.uk shipped over 700,000 units in one 24 hour period, which represents 375 tonnes of goods. That means that on average, a delivery truck was leaving an Amazon.co.uk distribution centre once every seven minutes."

Like eBay, Amazon.com was born in 1995. The name reflected the vision of Jeff Bezos, to produce a large scale phenomenon like the Amazon River. This ambition has proved justified since just 8 years later, Amazon passed the $5 billion sales mark – it took Wal-Mart 20 years to achieve this. These are Amazon’s revenue models.

These three companies had indeed amazing e-commerce revue models. No one company started well and still doing well, so are these companies. They faced their ups and downs and had gone stable for the mean time, but in the future, no one will know what the outcome of these companies is. It depends on them, how they manage the company. Whatever it is, it would be great to see more e-commerce successes than failures.