Wikinventia — Atlas of discoveries and inventions · Global Age

Birth of e-commerce — first secure online transactions

1994 AD · Transmission: Global
ComputingEventNorth American

In November 1994, Tower Records becomes the first documented store to deploy SSL in production on Netscape Navigator, allowing any user to enter payment data directly into a web form with no technical setup. This marks the birth of e-commerce as scalable technology, distinct from NetMarket's pioneering August 1994 PGP-based transaction, which required manual technical setup on Unix. The decisive difference is automation: SSL integrated into Netscape makes encryption transparent across Windows, Mac, and Unix. In 1995 Amazon and eBay demonstrate the model's viability at mass scale.

Historical regionUSA
Primary sourceKalakota, R.; Whinston, A.B. — Frontiers of Electronic Commerce (1996)
Secondary sourceOECD — Digital Economy Outlook 2024
Original languageEnglish
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