Ethical Issues

In
E-Commerce
Presented By
Iyer

Krishna

Introduction
In the early ages the Internet only became the platform to search
information and to communicate by each others.
But now, we can say that Internet has been commercialized (thus the
term e-commerce emerge).
Nowadays, we can see almost all trading and business activities
including banking can be done online. This trend give a lot of
advantages both to consumers and business organizations
However, the bad side about e-commerce also cannot be
ignored. What I mean the bad side is about the ethical issue in ecommerce. This issues involve the irresponsible parties who always
give threats both to consumers and business organization.

Phishing
Phishing is the attempt to acquire sensitive information such as usernames,
passwords, and credit card details (and sometimes, indirectly, money) by
masquerading as a trustworthy entity in an electronic communication.

Interesting Facts
10 Most Phished Companies
#1 Paypal 83,145 confirmed attempts ( 69.28%)
#2 Facebook 10,924 confirmed attempts (9.10%)
#3 Sulake Corporation 10,592 confirmed attempts (8.83%)
#4 Orkut 3694 confirmed attempts (3.08%)
#5 Santander UK 3190 confirmed attempts (2.66%)
#6 HSBC Group 2029 confirmed attempts (1.69%)
#7 TAM Fidelidade 1841 confirmed attempts (1.53%)
#8 World of Warcraft 1703 confirmed attempts (1.53%)
#9 JPMorgan Chase and Co. 1491 confirmed attempts
( 1.24%)
#10 Mastercard 1397 confirmed attempts (1.16)

Cyber-Squatting
Cyber-squatting is an activity which a person or firm register,
purchase and uses the existing domain name belong to the
well-known organization for the purpose of infringing its
trademarks. This type of person or firm, called cyber-squatters
usually infringed the trademarks to extort the payment from
original trademarks owner.
The extortion of payment occur when they offers the prices far greater
than they had purchased the organizations domain name upon.
Some cyber-squatters put up derogatory remarks about the person or
company which the domain is meant to represent (e.g.:
www.walmartsucks.com), in an effort to encourage the subject to
re-buy their domain from them.

Back in 2007 The Washington Post reported that Dell filed a

lawsuit against Belgium Domains, Capitol Domains, and
Domain Doorman for cyber-quatting and typosquatting.One of the domains cited was
www.dellfinacncialservices.com

Privacy Invasion
The privacy invasion occur when the personal details
belong to consumers are exposed to the unauthorized
party. It may occur in 3 ways.
A. Electronic commerce businesses
B. The personal information of consumers
C. Malicious programs

Online Piracy
The online piracy can be defined as unauthorized copyright
of electronic intellectual property such as e-books, music or
videos.
This unethical activity occurs when the Internet users use
the software and hardware technology in an illicit manner to
transfer the electronic intellectual property over the Internet.
For example, some web-based applications such as
www.thepiratebay.orghave enabled large scale
exploitation of music, games, software, movies, eBooks etc..
that is available for free of cost on the Internet without the
authorization of rights holders.

Interesting Facts
INDIA Ranks 8th In Online Music Piracy

Email Spamming
E-mail spamming, also known as unsolicited commercial e-mail
(UCE) involves using e-mail to send or broadcast unwanted
advertisement or correspondence over the Internet.
The individual who spam their e-mail usually called spammer.
Many spammers broadcast their e-mail for the purpose of trying to
get peoples financial information such as credit card or account
bank numbers in order to defraud them.
The example of fraud using e-mail is spammers will lure consumers
to enter their personal information on fake website using e-mail,
forged to look like it is from authorized organization such as bank.
The content of e-mail often directs the consumers to the fake
website in order to lure them to fill their personal information such
as credit card or bank accounts details. This technique is called
phishing.

An example of a phishing email, disguised as an officialemail from a (fictional)

bank. The sender is attempting to trick the recipient into revealing confidential
information by "confirming" it at the phisher's website. Note the misspelling of the
words receivedanddiscrepancy. Also note that although the URL of the
bank'swebpage appears to be legitimate, the hyperlink would actually be pointed
at the phisher's webpage.

Interesting Facts
INDIA Ranks 1st In Spamming

Web Tracking
E-businesses draw information on how visitors use a site through log files.
Analysis of log file means turning log data into application service or installing
software that can pluck relevant information from files in-house. Companies
track individuals movement through tracking software and cookie analysis.
Programs such as cookies raise a batch of privacy concerns. The tracking
history is stored on your PCs hard disk, and any time you revisit a website, the
computer knows it. Many smart end users install programs such as Cookie
cutters, Spam Butcher, etc.. which can provide users some control over the
cookies.
The battle between computer end users and web trackers is always going on
with a range of application programs.
For example, software such as Privacy Guardian, My Privacy, etc. can protect
users online privacy by erasing browsers cache, surfing history and cookies.
To detect and remove spyware specially designed programs like Ad-Aware are
present. A data miner application, SahAgent collects and combines Internet
browsing history of users and sends it to servers. The battle goes on!

10 Ways To Stay Safe

Online
1. Be a responsible cyber citizen.
2. Use anti-virus software.
3. Do not open email from unknown sources.
4. Use hard-to-guess passwords and keep them private.
5. Protect computers with firewalls.
6. Do not share access to your computers with strangers.
7. Disconnect from the internet when not in use.
8. Back-up your computer regularly.
9. Regularly download security protection update
"patches".
10. Help your family to check computer security on a
regular basis.