The terms Internet, electronic commerce, electronic business, and cybertrade are used often. However, they are used interchangeably and with no common understanding of their scope or relationships. Establishing terms that clearly and consistently describe our growing and dynamic networked economy is a critical first step toward developing useful statistics about it. . . . E-business infrastructure is the share of total economic infrastructure used to support electronic business processes and conduct electronic commerce transactions. . . . Computer-mediated networks are electronically linked devices that communicate interactively over network channels.
Electronic commerce is an innovative approach to ensuring future sustainable economic growth.
Throughout the world, the profound impact of electronic commerce on the economies and societies of the globe will undoubtedly improve economic efficiency, competitiveness and profitability and the development of the information society . . . . It affects the business environment at national, regional and global levels, and generates major opportunities, and new challenges, for market growth and development of jobs, industries and services . . . . Measuring electronic commerce as accurately as conventional commerce is not easy given the difficulty of defining it and adequately capturing the value associated with it . In order to explore and estimate the socio-economic impacts of electronic commerce, it is essential to define electronic commerce. As with many new services, this is not a simple matter, as definitions given by various sources differ significantly.