American National Standards Institute (ANSI) - Ansi And The Internet

ANSI AND THE INTERNET

Before e-commerce, ANSI already was involved in standardizing processes for computers. For instance, the well-known C programming language was approved by the ANSI committee, thereby ensuring that most C compilers were compatible with each other, regardless of the vendor. Additionally, ANSI established a range of standards for both electronic and electrical components and interactions, and set the standards for a range of communications protocols, including those for fiber-optic data transmission.

As the Internet opened up in the early 1990s and e-commerce became an increasingly important social and economic phenomenon, ANSI again kicked into high gear to coordinate the virtually wide-open move to develop protocols and standards. With the Internet and e-commerce speeding the pace of development and change, there grew increasing calls for a speeding of the standards-setting process. For instance, developments in the methods of online payments are crucial to the development and expansion of e-commerce, and it's crucial that the speed and security of such payments keep pace with the speed of the Internet in general. In that spirit, ANSI oversaw the development of uniform standards for electronic signatures, which facilitate the employment of e-checks for online payment. These standards set guidelines for the generation, verification, and security of electronic signatures.

In the early 2000s, the ANSI-accredited ASC X12 Committee focused on pan-industrial businessstandards for Extensible Markup Language (XML), a hypertext meta-language allowing for the definition of Web-based information, design, and communication. The committee based its standards-writing on the Electronic Business XML (ebXML) initiative, which is designed to facilitate the business-to-business e-commerce market. The standards aim to coordinate a set of business "objects," valid across national boundaries, which define elements of online transactions.

ANSI also oversaw the many different groups dedicated to developing standards for storage-area networks (SANs). Often, the major manufacturers in a given industry will proceed with the development of a de facto standard before ANSI even gets involved. However, according to Computer Technology Review, such ANSI-less standards are much more difficult to establish when dealing with many vendors that provide very similar products that must work in an open network environment, as is the case with SANs. As a result, ANSI took the initiative in working with SAN companies and organizations at a fairly early stage in the standards-development process.

In the late 1990s, ANSI joined 24 other standards organizations worldwide in calling for the development of international e-commerce standards, mainly to protect consumers. These proposals included measures to ensure the reliability of merchants and to safeguard privacy and the security of financial information. At the ISO's Committee on Consumer Policy (COPOLCO) meeting in May 2000, COPOLCO presented evidence that consumers, for lack of confidence in these areas, often were hesitant to engage in online commerce. Thus, the development of such standards was of great concern to consumers and businesses alike. The lack of standardization in an area with such rich opportunities provided business groups with a vital stake in contributing to and facilitating an e-commerce standardization process.

The result of the COPOLCO meeting was the creation of the E-Commerce Consumer Standards Solutions Forum, which centers worldwide discussion on the implementation of international standards for the online marketplace. The ultimate goal was increased consumer acceptance of and involvement in e-commerce, aided by multilateral governmental agreements, domestic regulations, standards created and implemented through the normal domestic and international channels, consumer education and out-reach, and other approaches.