Cook:
Right now, there is a remote-payment system that's quite well established. It's called a credit card. With slight adjustments it will work on the Internet.
BYTE:
What adjustments?
Cook:
Frankly, not much because you can type in a credit-card number and send it over the Net [today]. And it's probably as secure if not more secure than using a credit card to buy dinner in a restaurant. Because when the waiter disappears with your credit card, you don't how many charge slips he's running off, what notes he's making, or what happens to the trash. All sorts of bad things can happen, but the credit-card companies cover your butt, and you don't worry about it. On-line, there's no waiter going anywhere. Especially if you put any kind of modest security on it, it's going to have an equal or better chance of not being tampered with than in the restaurant example. What needs to happen? The banks need to cover your butt the way they do with credit-card users. I think you'll get better security on the Net than you will in a restaurant. VISA and MasterCard are coming out with a security standard [see the section, "Security Blankets" in the ma
in story].
BYTE:
What do you think about that?
Cook:
Whatever they do is fine. In two years, no one will think about it.
BYTE:
Will Intuit ever get into the transaction-processing business?
Cook:
No. We believe the payment system should be run by banks. And that groups of banks should run intracountry transactions. So we're in essence unrelated to DigiCash and CyberCash. One, we don't do payment transactions. Second, we don't do retail-to-consumer work at all. We're building electronic-commerce software that helps financial institutions (banks, insurance companies) sell to and serve their customers.
The financial institutions are already tremendously automated at the back end. There's no physical delivery: Wealth is exchanged by exchanging electronic bits. Our goal is to get an end-to-end digital link [for consumers].
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Intuit's Scott Cook: The Net will be safer than waiters with your credit card.
E-Commerce: Safe Today?
