The Internet is establishing a global stage for commerce and industries. This brand new world of commerce, to use a historical analogy, promises more opportunities than were imagined by the Europeans who were headed for the New World of the Americas a few centuries ago. Internet's promises and changes are no longer just promises. The Internet's impacts on human lives are being felt in such diverse areas as entertainment, education, commerce and services. A few examples include online trading, distribution, banking, stocks and securities exchange, travel and hotel reservation services and so on.
Developed countries are already well into adapting the Internet for commerce.
These examples show the extent the Internet affects our economic lives and the pressing needs to embrace the technological medium and to stimulate initiatives for research and applications to be abreast of new developments. The vision of the ICEC is to become a leading international center for research in technologies, their commercial applications and management, standardization and other basic frameworks related to electronic commerce. The ICEC's goals and objectives include, first, providing research and development functions performed by domestic researchers and international research fellows and, second, carrying out international activities via several research events such as international conferences, workshops and the publication of research papers. The ICEC offers an indispensable platform to identify, develop and apply leading technologies of electronic commerce and it will play an important role as an international leader in this area. The home page of the ICEC is established to provide an integrated forum for exchanging and disseminating information about electronic commerce in order to achieve our goals.