IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/h/pal/palchp/978-0-333-98280-8_4.html
   My bibliography  Save this book chapter

The system’s relationship with users

In: Net Benefit

Author

Listed:
  • Wingham Rowan

Abstract

A GEMs system would have multiple responsibilities to its users. Crucially, it must prove that it does not abuse its position by compiling information about any company or individual’s activities, apart from an optional generalized trading record. Unlike the Balkanized world of uncoordinated electronic commerce channels, users can be sure there is no data capture at any stage in the buying process. Instead, GEMs offers a user questionnaire which asks for ever-changing individual preferences in all sorts of markets. The couple seeking a weekend away, for instance, might have both clicked that they prefer a vegetarian cooked breakfast option in the overnight accommodation section of their questionnaire and GEMs would make that a search priority in ranking their options for any particular location. Persuading users to be completely at ease with GEMs, however, would take more than peerlessly detailed software. Non-binary aspects of system stewardship must be equally reassuring. To this end GEMs should operate by the principles of Guaranteed Electronic Markets (listed in Appendix one). These mandate neutral markets, distance from government or any particular seller and the right of a user to leave the system and have all their details expunged at any time. This would be enforced by transparency of operation (Box 3.1). The likelihood of being found out notwithstanding, a GEMs consortium would have no incentive to invade users’ privacy. Restricted by statute to running passive electronic markets, the system has no application for individual information. The greatest business risk faced by operators would be analogous to a run on a bank: users lose faith in the system and exit en masse.

Suggested Citation

  • Wingham Rowan, 1999. "The system’s relationship with users," Palgrave Macmillan Books, in: Net Benefit, chapter 0, pages 30-32, Palgrave Macmillan.
  • Handle: RePEc:pal:palchp:978-0-333-98280-8_4
    DOI: 10.1057/9780333982808_4
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    To our knowledge, this item is not available for download. To find whether it is available, there are three options:
    1. Check below whether another version of this item is available online.
    2. Check on the provider's web page whether it is in fact available.
    3. Perform a search for a similarly titled item that would be available.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:pal:palchp:978-0-333-98280-8_4. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Sonal Shukla or Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.palgrave.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.