Internet through the medium of easy to use graphical operating environments and the World Wide Web is changing business paradigms. It has allowed new models of commercial interaction in a truly open global marketplace; this model is called electronic commerce or ecommerce.
Ecommerce and other information technologies are transforming the face of global commerce, revolutionising retail and direct marketing and becoming the prime movers of economic growth well into the next millennium3. The paradigm has drastically reduced transaction costs, made the distance between buyer and seller irrelevant, and provided access to global markets, even to small-sized companies.
The exponential developments of computer and communication technologies along with the advances in database and information processing, makes it now possible to collect, compile, analyze, and deliver large amounts of precise information around the world more quickly and efficiently than ever before. This increased access to information, while reducing marketing and inventory costs facilitates ecommerce by allowing it to reach potential consumers (econsumers) easily and cheaply. This aspect is beneficial to the econsumer if the savings are passed on to them.
The potential for directly reaching econsumer via the Internet has in turn given rise to the increased market for personal information. This market in turn has led to the increased harvesting of econsumer actions as they perform commercial transactions and move around the Web. Collection of such information in huge databases is mined by and for ecommerce companies to leverage their advantage in the fierce global marketplace.
Information about individuals has hence become an important commodity in this information age with new companies being set up expressly to generate such data. The inherently global nature of the Internet further complicates the matter. Citizens of one country can easily visit web sites in other countries, leaving behind valuable information. However, the same technology that makes it so cheap, easy and fast to integrate information about an individual from different sources can also be used to compromise the person and violate her privacy. The great promise of ecommerce poses its greatest threat. This is more troublesome in an environment where some governments in an effort, to allow the unhindered growth of ecommerce, has adopted a non-regulatory, market-oriented approach to ecommerce[7].