Privacy and e-commerce: a consumer-centric perspective

Abstract

Privacy is an ancient concept, but its interpretation and application in the area of e-commerce are still new. It is increasingly widely accepted, however, that by giving precedence to consumer privacy bigger benefits can be reaped by all parties involved. There has been much investigation into the concept of privacy, legal frameworks for protecting this most impalpable of human values and, more recently, computing technologies that help preserve an individual's privacy in today's environment. In this paper we review the historical development of this fundamental concept, discussing how advancements both in society and in technology have challenged the right to privacy, and we survey the existing computing technologies that promote consumer privacy in e-commerce. Our study shows that historically the protection of privacy has been driven primarily both by our understanding of privacy and by the advancement of technology, analyses the limitations of privacy protections for current e-commerce applications, and identifies directions for the future development of successful privacy enhancing technologies.