Information Technology is a growing field that has an invaluable impact on our daily lives. The creation of the World Wide Web has changed the way we think, communicate, study and do business. The Internet has become a tool in our everyday lives that, if separated from, would cause many of us to fall severely behind the times. The Internet has also created a digital divide that becomes more evident with every advance in technology. The Internet is a measure of convenience. That commerce can occur at the touch of a button without ever meeting another face to face is a true modern miracle. E-Commerce and more specifically online shopping, is a direct result of the expansion of the Internet and the desire of consumers to have things faster and easier. In short, E-Commerce has created an entirely new market all together. However, with the good comes the bad. E-Commerce has brought with it a new barrage of advertising and a new concern of security. This paper will examine the truth behind Pop-Up advertising and attempt to measure there usefulness as a marketing tool against the possible security breeches associated with them.

Introduction to E-Commerce

The first step in understanding the implications of online marketing techniques is to understand the online market itself. E-Commerce, electronic commerce that is, is an extremely dynamic term as daily advances in technology and changes in the online marketplace force consumers and businesses to rethink its capabilities and purposes. The basis of E-Commerce lies in transactions between consumers and businesses as well as between businesses. For the purposes of this paper we will limit our examination to consumer-business transactions, as we feel that it is the consumer market that is most affected by the continuing onslaught of pop-up ads. Essentially, E-Commerce was created to satisfy the demands of consumers. E-Commerce can "lower costs, increase efficiencies, reduce inventories, expand market research, increase speed to market and provide competitive advantages."⁽¹⁾

E-Commerce grew from the creation of Information Technology. And while it still relies heavily on IT, E-Commerce has newly incorporated a "business-like" twist. E-Commerce takes business and communicates it over the wireless network and brings it home to millions of online shoppers and businesses. While the bulk of E-Commerce is done between businesses, consumers most often relate it to buying and selling from retail and auction sites over the Internet. E-Commerce can act as a much more efficient way of doing business as consumers repeatedly seek opportunities to complete tasks faster and closer to home. Consumers have rewarded the creation of such a convenient means of doing business by continually purchasing goods online. The United States is expected to lead the world in business to consumer E-Commerce in the year 2001 with projected online retail sales of $10 billion. By 2003 those numbers are expected to clime to over $2 trillion.⁽²⁾

There are pertinent issues, however, which trouble the online market, and the majority of those issues deal with privacy. To purchase something online is to purchase a product that you cannot physically touch or truly examine for suitability and flaws. It also means placing a huge amount of trust in the business from which you are purchasing. Buying goods over the Internet requires placing your credit card number online and leaving it vulnerable to hackers and thieves. Privacy issues of E-Commerce have the potential to shut the system down. While there are still those willing to trust that the companies they purchase from will have secure Websites, it is unlikely that the security issues will ever truly be solved.

The E-Commerce market has put a very unique twist on advertising; a twist that plays directly into the privacy issues previously mentioned. Online companies have proven capable of storing information consumers enter while purchasing. Amazon.com, for example, stores the titles and genres of items purchased online so that the next time you access that Website from your home computer "suggestions" similar to items you have previously purchased will automatically appear on the main screen. While this may be a useful advertising technique, many consumers view it as an invasion of privacy. E-Commerce has also given birth to the idea of pop-up advertising. These are mini windows that are triggered by the accessing of certain Websites. America Online is one of many browsers riddled with pop-up ads, so much so that one cannot access AOL without being subjected to them. Many consumers view them as an annoyance and a security concern, and it is thus necessary to look more closely into the purpose, effectiveness and security behind pop-up ads.
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