To help you understand the jargon used, we have put together a brief glossary of e-business terms.

eBusiness Glossar

Please choose a letter.

A | B | C | D | E | F | G | H | I | J | K | L | M N | O | P | Q | R | S | T | U | V | W | X | Y | Z

D

Data integrity

General description for the protection of data against falsification or changes during transmission.

Decryption

The decoding process of an encrypted file into its original form.

DeNic

Stands for "Deutsches Network Information Center": Organization with its headquarters in Karlsruhe responsible for the granting of domains and IP numbers in the top-level domain .de. DE-NIC also administrates the primary name server of the domain .de that documents the names and IP numbers of all computers connected in the German INTERNET. DE-NIC administrates the INTERNET in conjunction with international committees such as IV-DENIC.

DHTML

(Dynamic HTML) Functions provided exclusively by browsers of the 4.x generation for the development of self-running and interactive applications.

Digital Cash

Two main mechanisms in that "digital coins" can be downloaded to the user's PC from a participating bank, or the set up of a digital money account with a bank. Both (encrypted) forms of cash can be sent to merchants for payment.

Digital Certificate

Online identification that authenticates a consumer, merchant and a financial institution. Digital certificates are used to encrypt information exchanged in SET transactions. A certificate is a public key that has been digitally signed by a trusted authority (the financial institution) to identify the user of the public key.

Digital Money

The same as digital cash but can also involve the use of software-based secure credit card transactions.

Digital Receipt Infrastructure (DRI)

Utilizing this infrastructure enables consumers and organizations to prove that electronic transactions and events actually took place. In legal terms, these serve as a digital trail, as opposed to a paper trail.

Digital Signatures

An electronic signature, which cannot be forged. Instead it is generated from a computed digest of the text that is encrypted and sent with the text message. The recipient decrypts the signature and retrieves the digest from the received text. If the digests match, the message is authenticated and proved to be from the sender.

Digital Wallet

Software that provides the equivalent of a wallet for electronic commerce. A digital wallet, or e-wallet, holds digital money that you purchase similar to travelers' checks. A wallet may also hold your credit card information along with a digital certificate that identifies you as the authorized cardholder.

Disintermediation

The practice of cutting out the middleman to achieve convenience, savings and fast turn-around time for consumers. Refers to the bypassing of traditional retail channels for direct selling by Web-based companies.

Domain

Name of the information offer that is controlled in the WWW. The domain comes directly after http://www. The endings .de and .com are examples of top-level domains.