There have been several key steps in the history of e-commerce.  The first step came from the development of the Electronic Data Interchange (EDI).  EDI is a set of standards developed in the 1960’s to exchange business information and do electronic transactions [3].  At first there was several different EDI formats that business could use, so companies still might not be able to interact with each other.  However, in 1984 the ASC X12 standard became stable and reliable in transferring large amounts of transactions [1].  The next major step occurred in 1992 when the Mosaic web-browser was made available, it was the first ‘point and click’ browser.  The Mosaic browser was quickly adapted into a downloadable browser, Netscape, which allowed easier access to electronic commerce [1].  The development of DSL was another key moment in the development to of e-commerce.  DSL allowed quicker access and a persistent connection to the Internet [1].  Christmas of 1998 was another major step in the development of e-commerce.  AOL had sales of 1.2 billion over the 10 week holiday season from online sales [1].  The development of Red Hat Linux was also another major step in electronic commerce growth.  Linux gave users another choice in a platform other then Windows that was reliable and open-source.  Microsoft faced with this competition needed to invest more in many things including electronic commerce [1].

Napster was an online application used to share music files for free.  This application was yet another major step in e-commerce.  Many consumers used the site and were dictating what they wanted from the industry [2].  A major merger, in early 2000, between AOL and Time Warner was another major push for electronic commerce.  The merger, worth $350 million, brought together a major online company with a traditional company [2].  In February 2000 hackers attacked some major players of e-commerce, including Yahoo, ebay and Amazon.  In light of these attacks the need for improved security came to the forefront in the development of electronic commerce [2]. 

It is predicted that that revenues, up until 2006, will grow 40% to 50% yearly.  Expectations of higher prices as well as larger profits for e-commerce business are also present.  Also, we will see a larger presence by experienced traditional companies, such as Wal-Mart, on the Internet.  It is believed companies in general will take this mixed strategy of having stores online and offline in order to be successful.  It can be seen that there will be a large growth in Business-to-Consumer (B2C) e-commerce, which is online businesses selling to individuals [4].  However, even though B2C electronic commerce may be the most recognizable there are different varieties.

Today the largest electronic commerce is Business-to-Business (B2B).  Businesses involved in B2B sell their goods to other businesses.  In 2001, this form of e-commerce had around $700 billion in transactions.  Other varieties growing today include Consumer-to-Consumer (C2C) where consumers sell to each other, for example through auction sites.  Peer-to-Peer (P2P) is another form of e-commerce that allows users to share resources and files directly [4].

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