eBusiness Glossar

A

1-Click ordering

Online shopping lets you place several items in your shopping basket with a click of the mouse.

AADS (Account Authority Digital Signature)

A payment mechanism where smart cards and PIN codes interact to generate a unique digital signature for each transaction. Removes the need for third-party authorization of payments, thereby reducing the risk of payment details being intercepted in transit.

Access Provider

Commercial or private organizations that provide access to the Internet or specific features of it such as Email.

Account

The user account at an Internet provider or an online service provider. The account enables the user to make use of services such as his own Email address, or to access available information.

ACK

(Acknowledgement)- acknowledgement receipt - receipt. Part of a protocol for data transmission. It indicates the successful transmission of data. The word is also used loosely to indicate "OK, understood" in Emails and Chats".

Acquirer or aquiring bank

The institution or organization where a merchant has an account to process transactions and credit payments.

Active Server Pages (ASP)

One of Microsofts developed standards for generating dynamic web pages. A wide range of new elements can be included in a page using script languages.

ActiveX

A development by Microsoft that simplifies the release of information between applications and enables objects (video, sound, ...) to be embedded in external documents such as web pages.

Ad

Abbreviation of "advertisement". Both online and print advertisements are known as "Ads". The most important ads are called banners and buttons and are directly integrated in the web page.

Ad-Impressions

The number of accesses to an advertising object - visual contact with an advertisement in the WWW, or a measured value of the success of an advertisement in the World Wide Web.

AdClick

Number of "clicks" on a specific object, e.g. an online advertising area. AdClick is also known as Click Through. Both expressions describe the mouse click on a linked advertising banner of a web page that moves the user directly to the page of the advertiser.

ADSL

Asynchronous Digital Subscribe Line. Enables the user to achieve a transmission rate of up to 9 Mbit/s during downloading; and of up to 640 kbit/s during uploading. The 'asymmetric' in the name means that the data transmission is not the same in both directions.

Affiliates

A partner program: A partner incorporates a link to a shop in his homepage. Now if a visitor reaches the shop via this link, the partner can be compensated via a special system.

Agent

A search program that searches in the Internet for specific expressions according to the instructions of the user.

AMESA (Asia Mobile Electronic Services Alliance)

A Visa-backed initiative representing the first Asia-Pacific partnership to integrate the power of the smart card, mobile phone, public key infrastructure and open standards.

Animated GIF (Animated GIF files)

Data format for animated graphics in the Internet.

Applet

This usually means the programs that were developed in the programming language Java and are used in connection with a Java-capable internet browser.

Archie

Internet search engine specially for FTP files.

Arpanet

Origin of the Internet. In the beginning, the Arpanet consisted of only four computers that swapped information. Even then there was no central computer, but the data could be sent to each of the other computers in various ways.

ASCII

Abbreviation of "American Standard Code for Information Interchange": The ASCII standard was developed in the 60s at the time of data transmission by means of telex. For each character there is a numeric code that enables text to be exchanged between different systems. However, with only 7 bits, the ASCII code only includes the "simple" alphabet (!, ", #, $, ..., 0, 1, 2, 3, ..., A, B, C, D, ..., a, b, c, d, ..., {, |, }) and the control codes that are required, e.g. for printer control - a total of 128 characters. This does not include special characters such as German mutated vowels (umlauts), the "ß" and other national special characters that are only contained in extended ASCII code. This is based on an 8-bit structure. Even today it is still unusual in telecommunication - e.g. by Email - to use special characters. They could be wrongly interpreted by other systems under certain circumstances.

ASP (Application Service Provider)

A body which licenses, maintains and rents third-party software systems to business clients.

Asymmetric encryption

The sender and receiver have different complementary encryption keys. One key is private and the other key is usually public. If A wants to send B an encrypted file, he gets hold of the public key via the WWW. This key can only be used to encrypt the file. To decrypt it, B requires the private key that only he has. This method is technically very time consuming, although it is also very secure.

Attachment

Email attachments are a simple method of sending files from one Internet user to another. For example, images are sent as attachments within Emails.

Audit Trail

For recording purposes, messages created as a by-product of data processing runs or mechanized operations.

Authentication

A term describing the process of identification of individuals and businesses through the use of digital certificates.

Authorization

This is the process where permission is granted by the card issuer (the financial institution) allowing the payment transaction to proceed. It is during this process that the issuing bank checks that the available credit on the card is not exceeded.