The Israeli government must set a standard for securing Internet purchases, in order to promote e-commerce in the country, says Nissim Barel, general manager of Comsec, a company engaged in information security.
Barel says protection of commercial deals should not remain a voluntary matter in which each commercial company determines individually the standard or protocol it employs for information security. "There has to be a minimum requirement by the authorities for protecting e-commerce information, just as official standards exist in all other branches of the economy, " says Barel.
According to Barel, the main problem in Israel being lagging behind the US and Western Europe e-commerce, stems from fears of problems of information security arising in executing commercial deals. "In many cases, the fear is psychological, deriving from the fact that there is no official government seal of approval, in the form of an official standard of any sort," says Barel, "People prefer an official law to voluntary application."
Barel believes an official standard for securing information in e-commerce transactions will boost activities in the field in Israel within a short period of time.
Tescom Israel general manager Yeheli Harari says e-commerce in Israel is extremely small, while Israel already has the potential for e-commerce amounting to NIS 1 billion a year.
Harari says that while Internet usage is increasing in Israel, e-commerce lags very far behind. "The absurd thing in Israel is that ‘the shoemaker goes barefoot’ in that the country is a leader in knowhow and development of applications to set up and maintain Internet sites, but does not manage to make advances in e-commerce."
Published by Israel's Business Arena March 4, 1999