Despite common perceptions that Amazon invented online shopping its widely acknowledged that a group of college grads (founders of NetMarket) in Nashua, New Hampshire conducted the very first ‘secure’ retail transaction on the web, exactly ten years to the day.
It’s the secure nature of this transaction, a CD, “Ten Summoner’s Tales” by Sting which makes it relevant and historically notable. A classmate of former NetMarket founder Daniel Khon purchased the CD with his credit card for $12.48 plus delivery by way of commercially
Ten years ago eager entrepreneurs in the U.S. faced a number of obstacles in selling online, not least that the government itself still controlled some of the internet’s infrastructure, and that under National Science Foundation rules, commercial activity on the internet was technically forbidden.
It was online security that was to restrict initial development. Despite NetMarket and The Home Shopping Network both capable of making secure transactions during 1994, they both conceded it was clunky due to users having to download software that would allow them to transmit credit card details securely over the web.
It was the following year in 1995 when online retailing began to flourish. Netsacpe’s latest edition of its web browser incorporated the Secure Sockets Layer or SSL security protocol that we know of and use today. In simple terms SSL creates a secure connection between a client, being a users desktop computer, laptop or internet enabled device and a server, over which secure data can be transmitted, such as credit card numbers. We recognise SSL connections at work by web addresses or domains that begin with “https:”
Following Netscape down the SSL route was Microsoft who adopted the encryption standard within its Internet Explorer web browser, further establishing it’s place as the standard for protecting the transmission of confidential information across the internet. The same year a small Seattle based company called Amazon.com set up a book shop online. The rest as they say is history.