Brr... order confirmation spam

It's quite annoying. Spam that has the form of order confirmation. But given my consumer rights I have no need to worry. It's a pain though. And the obvious mislink leads to: http://onestepgo.com/



Dear Customer,



Thank you for your order. Your credit card has charged for amount $560.00.

Charges for the transaction will appear on your credit card statement under the name INTEGRAL LLC.



To view transaction status and order details, point your browser to the following URL:

http://www.mybill.com/order=SD25xxx



Sincerely,

MyBill Team

IInternet: browsing not buying...?

Research by Dutch retailers organisation RND demonstrates that a huge group of consumers uses the Internet to look before they buy. Of the 8,7 million active Internet users, 93 % uses the web to be informed about prices/products. Of this group of 8.7 million, 39 % has actually bought something over the web.

Size matters...

Small countries can more quickly cooperate and produce new products. Therefore the Estonians attract Ian's attention with smart cards that work on a national level:

Surprise and Shock! Identity smart cards that work on a national level!.

Dutch Standard for Internet payments: Ideal

In September Rabobank, ABN AMRO and ING announced the development of a Dutch standard for internet payments. The standard protocol essentially routes the shopper from the site of the merchant to the shopper's internet-banking environment, where payment is made in the usual manner. After the payment the merchant gets a guarantee en the shopper is brought back to the merchant environment.



The standard will be available to merchants and consumers from mid 2005 onwards. The name of the standard: Ideal, was announced during an e-banking track of e-Netherlands conference on November 11. It is expected that other Dutch banks will also incorporate the standard for their customers.



Research by Multiscope showed that 87 % of the Dutch population find the standard a good idea; 60 % expect to immediately make use of it. Especially a bunch of those consumers that at times still fear the Internet (70%) expect to use the product.



The poll also outlined that the awareness of bank internet payment products was:

- ING's paypal like scheme Way2pay: 32 %

- Rabodirect betalen: 28 %

- ABN AMRO E-Wallet: 14 %

- Rabo Minitix: 3 %

- ING Tootz: 1 %

Of these current payment products, only Minitix will continue to be offered by Rabobank. Rabodirect betalen will become Ideal; the other schemes will be dismantled.



By the way, during the conference it was stated that the current level of Internet payments in the Netherlands is 10 million. This number allows for some further calculations and estimations as to the total number of internet-payments in the EU. But I will leave that to others.