Trust and the Intermediary: The Benefits of Licensing TTPs and the Problem of Official Interception

There can be no doubt that electronic commerce will become increasingly important to our economic well‐being in the decade ahead. It will allow people and organisations to conduct their current commerce electronically, and it will usher in new patterns of commerce as people identify and take advantage of the new opportunities E‐commerce brings. Much E‐commerce will be little more than the electronic execution of current commercial practice. To the degree that we see a role for the intermediary in current business practice, we will see the role for the electronic equivalent in E‐commerce. However, the change from conventional to electronic commerce will generate the need for an additional type of intermediary that has no direct counterpart in conventional commerce.