Two weeks before Black Friday 2017, the W3C Web Commerce Interest Group had its inaugural meeting. The meeting was part of the annual TPAC meetings, and was held in Burlingame, California. The agenda and minutes are available.
I know you’re thinking: “Isn’t the Web already the number-
one commerce driver? Aren’t you a little late to the party?” The answers are “yes” and “no.” The Web continues to have ripe opportunities for standardizing a multitude of activities that can benefit commerce. While we do a lot of commerce on the Web today, much of the infrastructure is “invented as needed” and non-standard, and under those conditions implementations introduce complexity and barriers to entry.
Some Early History – Web Commerce and W3C
On August 22, 1994, I witnessed a demonstration of PizzaNet at the SCO Forum[1] at UCSC. This demonstration featured a web page through which you could order pizza. The project was a collaboration between the Santa Cruz Operation and PizzaHut, Inc., and the original PizzaNet is still reachable on the Web. The demonstration took about an hour because the delivery driver didn’t have a GPS or any other way to find us. And payment was made with a ten-dollar bill.
A little over a month later, in October, 1994, the W3C was founded. So, why, at this late date, would the W3C form a Web Commerce Interest Group?
Introducing the Web Commerce Interest Group
The Web Commerce IG is the newly chartered successor to the Web Payments IG. We held our first meeting at W3C TPAC 2017 in Burlingame, California on 9 and 10 November and included representatives from the retail, security, payment services, IoT, automotive and Web technology segments. Over the two day span of the meeting, the group discussed ten leading-edge topics related to commerce and payments on the Web, looking for potential standardization opportunities.
First, the Automotive Web Payments Task Force presented their current work. Rodrigo Meirelles (WEX) led the group in discussions, including the impact of driver distraction on UI design, how various “in vehicle” purchases might be handled, and the future effects of shared and autonomous vehicles on user interactions. The task force focused on the “pay at pump” use case as a priority, seeking feedback on whether and how the Web would add value for streamlining payment.
Next came Michael McCool (Intel) from the Web of Things Working Group (WoT WG). The Working Group’s project is to enable people to build IoT applications with devices from disparate technology stacks, gaining interoperability by linking those stacks through metadata. The WoT WG’s chief deliverable is consistent metadata exchange to enhance interoperability of devices using IoT technology. Michael helped the group examine some commerce use cases such as “push button” ordering, and also touched on the problem with authentication in an IoT environment. Tara Gay (American Express) shared some perspectives on IoT’s potential viewed from a payment network. Some questions she raised were “what will the user experience be like,” “how will authentication work,” and “do consumers really want the IoT level of connectivity for payments?” The group also discussed autonomous payments and their social/financial impact, and whether devices can be used and resold.
Led by Linda Toth (Conexxus), the next session featured Digital Offers and the Merchant Perspective. Merchants use advertising, offers, and loyalty programs to attract and maintain customers. Today, many or most digital offer systems are “closed loop” (i.e. non-standardized). These systems are operated independently and merchants typically subscribe and then entice their customers to subscribe as well. Several retail industry oriented groups have attempted to create standards which might help “open the loop” to allow offers to interoperate between merchants, suppliers, and customers, but these attempts have lacked the ability to reach customers in a consistent and ubiquitous way. The ubiquity of the Web suggests that it may offer opportunities to expand customer reach. The group engaged with presenters[2] from Conexxus (petroleum retail standards), GS1 (Coupon and Code Standards), Merchant Advisory Group, Maverik Stores, and Koupon Media. At the end of the session, the group considered use cases that 1) might be natural for W3C to investigate, 2) provide consistency with existing retail industry practice and 3) would prove beneficial for merchants and customers.
Because many parts of the world are lacking in basic infrastructure, telecommunications providers have adopted the role of financial service providers in those areas. Dominique Hazael-Massieux (W3C) and Ian Jacobs (W3C) proposed uses of the Payment Request API for applications such as bill payment through telcos, and expanded the conversation to include other interesting use cases, such as mobile money, peer-to-peer payments, and identity services. The group also talked about the role of regulations in the implementation of services.
Experts agree that Virtual Reality User Experience will play an important role in both commerce and payments. The group got to see alternative implementations of both purchasing and payment experiences in demonstrations by Dapeng Liu (Alibaba) and Matt Saxon (Worldpay). Both demonstrations exposed the potential for additional requirements in the API area, mainly in support of the purchase experience in addition to the API for payment.
Jason Dominicak (InAuth) and Ken Novak (InAuth) painted a compelling picture of how companies implement and use security, especially with regard to payments and commerce. They described a system using multiple factors to determine risk in various situations and provide strategies to “step-up” authentication when needed. In the course of the discussion, Jason brought up one of the most difficult questions regarding security on the Web: “How can a merchant or service provider assess risk without impinging on customer privacy?”
Additional sessions covering developments in the Blockchain CG, the Verifiable Claims WG, and Interledger Protocol CG provided important and useful information for future consideration.
Summary
The group finished the meeting with a lot of potential topics to consider. Obviously, a lot has changed on the Web since PizzaNet was introduced, but the basic problems remain: application interoperability, predictable and pleasant user experience, and the ability to reach and influence customers. These topics are still green, and the Web Commerce IG is ready for the challenge!
Notes:
[1] In addition, Kamal Mostafa introduced “IguanaCam” – a live stream of his pet iguana that you could view in a web browser.
[2] Presenters: Gray Taylor (Conexxus), Phil Archer and Amber Walls (GS1), Laura Townsend (MAG), Hubert Williams (Maverik Stores), and Bob Burke (Koupon Media).
[3] Photo Attribution:
Pizza 201107_3642 by bobistraveling (2011)
https://www.flickr.com/photos/bobistraveling/6019503383/
Attribution (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/)
Photo Attribution by PhotosForWork.com