COPS: a model and infrastructure for secure and fair electronic markets

Abstract

Existing electronic markets in the open network Internet often show a lack of security and fairness. New forms of trading are just coming up and the variety of different market structures and digital goods we will probably see in the future is yet unthinkable. Therefore, an infrastructure for future electronic markets has to support the realization of different market structures by providing secure and fair services in a transparent way and to allow dynamic changes of market structures. For example, it should allow that the market structure changes from an auction to a direct search market on the fly. We first elaborate an electronic market model and use it to describe how an open infrastructure for electronic markets should be realized. Finally we introduce the project COPS (Commercial Protocols and Services) in which we realize an infrastructure for secure and fair electronic markets.