E-Business in Germany

E Business, or electronic business stands for electronic business that is conducted commercially and privately through different electronic mediums, the most common medium being the Internet. Germany is doing very well in some forms of e-business. For example, Germany and Japan are among the few countries which have the highest percentage of microtransactions. What are microtransactions you ask? They are the next "Coming Thing" in business-to-consumer transactions. The idea is that you can carry a small card, like a debit or credit card, which is designed to be pre-loaded with a certain amount money. This card is not tied with your bank account and has a very small threshold. It was conceived to handle the problem of carrying loose change around with you to pay for the little things, such as travel fare, newspapers, parking meters, vending machine snacks, internet cafe use, etc. The reason that this form of payment is so popular is because of the ease of use. The Government has poured money in so that these card readers are placed almost anywhere. Businesses have jumped on the band wagon, which has made these microtransaction cards a necessity.





Another way that E-commerce is growing in Germany is the invent of RFID's on products. This technology will help speed the process and inventory of Logistics Management and other warehouse storage and shipping. The process involves a radio frequency tag which can be placed on an item or grouping of items. This RF tag responds to a certain radio frequency when pointed at. For example, imagine that you had a mirror that could be tuned or set to reflect a certain frequency or light particle. All other light or frequencies would pass through this mirror. This is how an RF tag works. It is set to reflect a certain freqency and let all other frequencies "pass through". A computer is setup to define which frequencies respond to which items. This is much like a bar code, but is much faster as the RFID only needs to be near the RF reader, and not directly swiped over or the tag found on the box or item.


Germany is also working on Theseus, it's spin off of Quaero, France's "Google Killer" This search engine will work much like Google's but it will have advanced technology which focuses on better indexing and cataloging of multimedia on the internet. Imagine being able to search for a video clip from places other than Youtube or Google Video or Yahoo video.

Another advance that Germany has been using is the use of Cookies and other website tracking software to help businesses market to a particular individual. This information of where a person has been or what they like to search for on the internet will allow businesses to tailor their marketing aproaches to that particular potential customer.

Sources:
E-Business in germany has been advancing in several ways, a few of these being the common use of MicroTransactions and RF-Tags.

MicroTransactions are transactions for small sums of money. This kind of transaction has really taken off in Germany and Japan. The Government has helped in making this form of transaction more popular by putting the readers on parking meters and transit fare collection stations. The user has a card, which looks much like a debit or credit card. Unlike a credit card, these cards are not tied to your bank account, they work much like a prepaid phone card. They are re-loadable and have a threshold of about $120. These cards are mostly used for transit fare, parking meters, vending machines, newspaper stands, and any other transaction that would normally only cost a few coins.
Another trend that has taken off in Germany is the use of RF tags to help businesses keep better track of inventory and speed the process of shipping and logistics. These RF tags work much like barcodes, you have a tag and a scanner. Unlike a barcode however, the tags will reflect a certain frequency when the reader sends a myriad of frequencies toward it. This speeds up the process as the user does not have to find the barcode on a package or item. The user simply points the reader in the general direction of the item, and the tag reflects back the proper frequency which belongs to the item or items.

Sources:
http://www.cio.com/article/30283/E_Business_Mark_White_on_Microtransactions

http://www.quaero.org/modules/movie/scenes/home/index.php?fuseAction=article&rubric=documents&article=documentsInformationsPresse

Information Privacy and Security

Computer crimes, access to information, and security are problems globally as geography doesn’t limit the internet. Germany is not immune to these problems and attempts to actively protect its citizens from such infringements and crime.

Critical information can range from copyrighted material to security information. Piracy in Germany is widespread.

A few statistics:
374 million music titles were illegally downloaded from Germany file-sharing systems in 2006
Damage was estimated at 440 Euros (US$ 642 million)
From January to June 2005, 11.9 million Germany-language or German-dubbed films were illegally downloaded
In 2006, film industry measured up 2 million downloads of their films within 30 days of their availability
Book and journal publishers cite an increase of infringing on ebook and audio book files on P2P networks.

In an effort to combat accessing information, under EU guidelines, an individual or company has the right to the IP addresses and identity of infringers on their privacy and information. However, Germany does not adhere to the EU guidelines. With the passing of Data Retention Directive, it is no longer possible to obtain ISPs in civil cases, even under court order. Copyright owners are left with only using a criminal action in obtaining the identity.

Germany, along with its European community, has tried to proactively create measures that would detect and protect. Beginning in 1998, Germany joined forces with Britain, Canada, France, Italy, Japan, Russia and the United States to coordinate efforts and investigate and prosecute cyber crimes. In 2001 European countries met at a Convention on Cybercrime to being creating a unified front against cybercrime. Since then, Germany has consistently tried to create laws and regulations that align with the Convention’s goals.

However, this active approach against cybercrime in Germany has not met the support of all of its citizens. For example, in 2006-2007 Germany debated and adapted a revised anti-hacking law. The purpose was to align with the Convention’s Article 6 which bans the creation of computer programs for the purpose of committing cybercrime. The law tightened up existing sanctions and “prohibits unauthorized users from disabling or circumventing computer security measures to access secure data.” It made it illegal to create, program, install or spread software that goes around security measures.

While this law is designed to proactively combat computer and cyber crime, many in Germany feel it over generalizes the problems and prevents some individuals from using these programs to legitimately combat cyber-crimes. Often, they will create such hacking programs to test the security of their company’s data. Under this new law, these programs would be considered illegal and could be accompanied with stiff penalties. "In essence, the way the laws are phrased now, there is no way to ever comply... even as a non-security company," says researcher Halvar Flake, a.k.a. Thomas Dullien, CEO and head of research at Sabre Security. As the law and many others continue through the court system, the question continues in Germany as to how far a country should go in its fight against cyber crime.

Sources:
http://www.darkreading.com/security/app-security/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=208804698
http://ecommerce.hostip.info/pages/241/Computer-Crime-INTERNATIONAL-COMPUTER-CRIME.html
http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9003712/Computer_crime_laws_worry_security_pros
http://www.iipa.com/rbc/2008/2008SPEC301GERMANY.pdf