LINKS
IN THIS SECTION
- Introduction
- ISP & Hosting
Services
- Customer/Partner
Communication
and Management Systems
- Payment Processing
Services
RELATED
SECTIONS
-
Taxation
of Offshore E-commerce
- Regulation
of Offshore E-commerce
- Offshore
Professional and Financial Services
-
Offshore E-commerce Applications
Security remains
an important issue for any company intending
to conduct e-commerce or e-business over the
Internet. Fraud is rife, and while encryption
offers a reasonable degree of protection against
the theft of credit card details or sensitive
data, it does not offer much protection against
criminal counter-parties, eg people pretending
to be someone they aren't (known, in its most
common e-mail form as 'phishing') or people
offering worthless stock (pump and dump schemes).
For this reason,
the Internet has seen rapid growth in 'certification'
schemes, whereby the parties to transactions,
or the components of transactions, are 'certified'
by a third-party authority or service to be
what they say they are. Evidently, certification
of identity travels hand-in-hand with certification
of value or creditworthiness, and with the insurance
of transactions, and has close links to the
payments process itself. In almost all cases,
e-signature legislation requires certification
of signatures as a safeguard, and usually provides
a framework within which certification authorities
can work.
Offshore e-commerce
and e-business are at least as vulnerable to
fraud as their onshore equivalents, perhaps
more so if there more locations are involved
in the commercial process. Encryption is built
into payment-processing services, which may
be enough for a straightforward offshore retail
distribution operation, but for anything more
complex (eg a procurement network) it will probably
be necessary to source certification procedures
independently.
There is no especial
offshore dimension to certification as an activity;
offshore jurisdictions with established certification
services include Bermuda, Cayman, the Isle of
Man and Hong Kong.
OFFSHORE
E-COMMERCE FACILITIES
- Introduction
- A quick overview of the tools, solutions and
facilities needed by companies locating e-commerce
or e-business operations in an offshore jurisdiction.
- ISP and Hosting Services
- The facilities you should look for in an offshore
jurisdiction to support an Internet e-commerce
or e-business presence.
- Customer/Partner
Communication and Management Systems - The
front-end systems you will need to communicate
with your customers or trading partners including
sales and exchange tools.
- Payment Processing
Services - How to offer efficient payment
processing world-wide from an offshore jurisdiction.
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