ECML v1: Field Names for E-Commerce
RFC 2706

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Network Working Goup                                         D. Eastlake
Request for Comments: 2706                                           IBM
Category: Informational                                     T. Goldstein
                                                                  Brodia
                                                            October 1999

                  ECML v1: Field Names for E-Commerce

Status of this Memo

   This memo provides information for the Internet community.  It does
   not specify an Internet standard of any kind.  Distribution of this
   memo is unlimited.

Copyright Notice

   Copyright (C) The Internet Society (1999).  All Rights Reserved.

IESG Note

   This document is the output of a vendor consortium, and is not the
   output of an IETF Working Group.  Implementors of this specification
   are warned that this data model is heavily biased toward conventions
   used in the United States, and the English language.  As such it is
   unlikely to be suitable for international or multilingual use in the
   global Internet.

Abstract

   Customers are frequently required to enter substantial amounts of
   information at an Internet merchant site in order to complete a
   purchase or other transaction, especially the first time they go
   there. A standard set of information fields is defined as the first
   version of an Electronic Commerce Modeling Language (ECML) so that
   this task can be more easily automated, for example by wallet
   software that could fill in fields.  Even for the manual data entry
   case, customers will be less confused by varying merchant sites if a
   substantial number adopt these standard fields.

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RFC 2706                    ECom Field Names                October 1999

Acknowledgements

   The following persons, in alphabetic order, contributed substantially
   to the material herein:

           George Burne, Trintech

           Joe Coco, Microsoft

           Kevin Weller, Visa

Table of Contents

   1. Introduction................................................2
   1.1 Background.................................................2
   1.2 Relationship to Other Standards............................3
   1.3 Areas Deferred to Future Versions..........................4
   2. Using The Fields............................................4
   2.1 Presentation of the Fields.................................4
   2.2 Methods and Flow of Setting the Fields.....................5
   2.3 HTML Example...............................................6
   3. Field Definitions...........................................7
   4. End Notes...................................................9
   5. Security Considerations....................................10
   References....................................................11
   Authors' Addresses............................................12
   Full Copyright Statement......................................13

1. Introduction

1.1 Background

   Today, numerous merchants are successfully conducting business on the
   Internet using HTML-based forms. The data formats used in these forms
   varies considerably from one merchant to another. End-users find the
   diversity confusing and the process of manually filling in these
   forms to be tedious.  The result is that many merchant forms,
   reportedly around two thirds, are abandoned during the fill in
   process.

   Software tools called electronic wallets can help this situation.  A
   digital wallet is an application or service that assists consumers in
   conducting online transactions by allowing them to store billing,
   shipping, payment, and preference information and to use this
   information to automatically complete merchant interactions.  This
   greatly simplifies the check-out process and minimizes the need for a
   consumer to complete a merchant's form every time.  Digital wallets
   that fill forms have been successfully built into browsers, as helper

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RFC 2706                    ECom Field Names                October 1999

   applications to browsers, as stand-alone applications, as browser
   plug-ins, and as server-based applications.  But the proliferation of
   electronic wallets has been hampered by the lack of standards.

   ECML (Electronic Commerce Modeling Language, <www.ecml.org>) Version
   1 provides a set of simple guidelines for web merchants that will
   enable electronic wallets from multiple vendors to fill in their web
   forms. The end-result is that more consumers will find shopping on
   the web to be easy and compelling.

   The set of fields documented herein was developed by the
   Wallet/Merchant Standards Alliance (www.ecml.org) which now includes,
   in alphabetic order, the following:

            American Express (www.americanexpress.com)
            AOL (www.aol.com)