A Framework for Identifying Confidential Information

A FRAMEWORK FOR IDENTIFYING CONFIDENTIAL INFORMATION

IN A B2C E-COMMERCE TRANSACTION

By

Asit Bandyopadhayay

ABSTRACT

A comprehensive literature review on confidential information in a B2C e-commerce

internet transaction from three key perspectives of customers, businesses as well

government and industry is presented in this paper. The literature review examines how

customers perceive their confidential information, how businesses comprehend and

provide solutions to protect the confidential information and how the government’s

legislation and industry’s self regulation define the confidential information. Significant

gaps in identifying confidential information among the three key perspectives are

discussed. A framework is proposed for identifying confidential information in a B2C ecommerce

Internet transaction by integrating the three key perspectives. The framework

could be used by customers and businesses to identify confidential information in a

consistent way. This paper is concluded by introducing possible future research issues.

KEYWORDS: Confidential information, e-commerce, privacy policy, cryptography,

P3P, identified information, related identifiable information, general identifiable

information

Asit Bandyopadhayay, Assistant Professor, Jaypee Business School, JIIT University, Noida,(U.P.), India.

JBS Working Paper Series W.P. No. JIITU/JBS/2008/02

© 2008 Jaypee Business School, Noida (U.P.), India 2

INTRODUCTION

In a business-to-consumer (B2C) electronic commerce (e-commerce) context, Internet

transactions are conducted between businesses and customers [Sch04]. E-commerce

advances exchange of a large amount of information among its participants [Mao01]. The

dramatic development of internet technology requires confidential communications to be

protected over the “open network” [WS96]. Confidentiality on the internet has been

defined on the basis that “only the sender and intended receiver should be able to

understand the...