Commerce conducted over the Internet , most often via the World Wide Web . E-commerce can apply to purchases made through the Web or to business-to-business activities such as inventory transfers. A customer can order items from a vendor's Web site, paying with a credit card (the customer enters account information via the computer) or with a previously established "cybercash" account. The transaction information is transmitted (usually by modem ) to a financial institution for payment clearance and to the vendor for order fulfillment. Personal and account information is kept confidential through the use of "secured transactions" that use encryption technology.

In an effort to further the development of e-commerce, the federal Electronic Signatures Act (2000) established uniform national standards for determining the circumstances under which contracts and notifications in electronic form are legally valid. Legal standards were also specified regarding the use of an electronic signature ( "an electronic sound, symbol, or process, attached to or logically associated with a contract or other record and executed or adopted by a person with the intent to sign the record" ), but the law did not specify technological standards for implementing the act. The act gave electronic signatures a legal standing similar to that of paper signatures, allowing contracts and other agreements, such as those establishing a loan or brokerage account, to be signed on line.