E/EI/11. Privacy and the Web

In the age of the internet, doing e-business has brought marketing to a completely new frontier. Online trading can actually bring lots of benefits for both B2B and B2C Company in cost reduction, communication, competitive advantage, and so on. (Chaffey, 2002, p25) Therefore, lots of companies started their online trading. However, as every coin has two sides, e-business can also bring risks for online organizations. For example, as a new media for doing business, the web may suffer some new kinds of risks like viruses, hackers and so on which can cause security and privacy problems. As Deitel, Deitel, and Steinbuhler (2001, p.182) point out that the explosion of e-business and e-commerce is forcing customers focus on their privacy as their may providing their highly confidential information through web sites. In this article, we will focus on privacy and the web. After fundamental view about net privacy definition, we will look at the both privacy threats and technologies and solutions for privacy to have a general understanding about privacy and the web.