Page 177 - Introduction to Electronic Commerce and Social Commerce

158 5 Innovative EC Systems: From E-Government to E-Learning, Knowledge Management, E-Health, and C2C Commerce

use of special software. For example, ProcurePort.com (see File-Sharing Utilities: Napster and Others
procureport.com/reverse-auction- services.html) provides
software to create C2C reverse auction communities online. It all started in 1999. By logging onto services such as
Napster, people were able to download files that others were
Selling and Buying in C2C willing to share for free. Such P2P networks enabled users to
search other members’ hard drives for a particular file,
In addition to auctions, eBay enables individuals to sell including data files created by users or copied from else-
goods to other individuals at fixed prices. Amazon.com and where. Digital music and games were the most popular files
Etsy (Chapter 3) do the same. Hundreds of other sites facili- accessed. Movies, TV shows, and videos followed shortly
tate C2C trading including those that use classified ads. thereafter. Napster had over 60 million members in 2002
before it was forced to stop its service due to copyright
violations.
Person-to-Person Money Lending The Napster server, and others that followed, functioned
as a directory that listed the files being shared by other users.
People use the Internet for direct person-to-person money lend- Once logged onto the server, users could search the directory
ing. A prime example is the Lending Club Corp. For an over- for specific songs and locate the file owner. They could then
view, see Martin and Amy (2016) and Cunningham (2015). directly access the owner’s computer and download the
songs they had chosen. Napster also included chat rooms to
Classified Ads connect its millions of users.
However, a U.S. federal court found Napster to be in vio-
Internet-based classified ads have several advantages over lation of copyright laws because it enabled people to obtain
newspaper classified ads. They cover a national, rather than music files without paying royalties to the creators of the
a local, audience, and can be updated quickly and easily. music. Following this ruling, in March 2002, Napster was
Most of them are free or charge very little. This greatly forced to shut down and filed for bankruptcy. In 2011,
increases the supply of goods and services available and the Napster was acquired by Rhapsody (rhapsody.com), a
number of potential buyers. One of the most successful sites subscription- based music downloading site. For a history of
of C2C classified ads is craigslist.org as seen in Chapter 2. Napster, see theguardian.com/music/2013/feb/24/napster-
Classified ads also include apartments for rent and corporate music-free-file-sharing.
housing across the USA (powered by forrent.com). A number of free file-sharing programs still exist (see
Freeclassifieds.com allows you to buy or sell anything for Chapter 12). For example, an even purer version of P2P is
free. Many newspapers also offer their classified ads online. BitTorrent (bittorrent.com), software that makes download-
In some cases, placing an ad in the classified section of one ing files fast. To access games over P2P networks, try
website automatically directs it into the classified sections of TrustyFiles (trustyfiles.com). Despite the temptation to get
numerous partners (known as cross-posting). “something for nothing,” remember that downloading copy-
Classified ads appear on thousands of websites, including righted materials for free is usually against the law.
popular social networks such as facebook.com/free.classi-
fied and linkedin.com. C2C Activities in Social Networks and Trading
Virtual Properties
Personal Services
C2C activities in social networks include the sharing of pho-
Numerous personal services are available on the Internet tos, videos, music, and other files; trading of virtual properties;
(lawyers, handy helpers, tax preparers, investment clubs, and conducting other activities. Trading virtual properties is
dating services). Some are located in the classified ad sec- very popular in virtual worlds.
tion, but others are listed on specialized websites (e.g.,
hireahelper.com) and directories. Some are offered free;
others charge a fee. SECTION 5.5 REVIEW QUESTIONS
Note: Be very careful before looking for any personal ser-
vices online. Fraud or crime could be involved (e.g., a lawyer 1. Define C2C e-commerce.
online may not be an expert in the area professed or may not 2. Describe the benefits of C2C e-commerce.
even be a lawyer at all). 3. Describe the major e-commerce applications.