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Text File | 1994-10-15 | 35KB | 737 lines

How to Buy Information with a First Virtual Account Buying information is easy, safe, and convenient. Follow the step-by- step instructions below to apply for an account, then try buying some information to see how easy it is! Before You Start Here are a few bits of information you'll want to know before you begin. _________________________ There are only a few restrictions on who can sign up for a First Virtual account and use it to buy information. (If you also want to be able to use your account to sell information, __________ ________ are available online.) First, you need a personal electronic mail account with an address and password that are private to you alone. All our business is done via electronic mail, and we use your email address to ask you if you agree to pay for your purchases. Actually, you can share your address and password, but only with people who you would trust with your wallet, like your spouse. In order to work with First Virtual, your electronic mail account needs to be __ ____ _________ , or at least to be able to send and receive Internet messages. Second, for now, you need a credit card. In 1995, we will begin to offer to debit your checking account directly, but right now that technology is not in place. We currently handle Visa, and MasterCard. What makes First Virtual ___________________ is the fact that your credit card number is never sent over the Internet, and indeed is never even stored on a machine that is connected to the Internet. It is protected with the same care and by the same mechanisms your bank uses to protect it. Also, other than the one-time account setup fee of $2.00, we will never post a charge on your credit card without first getting an explicit confirmation from you via email that you agree to the charge. Third, for now, you must be able to use United States dollars to buy information. By 1995, anyone in the world will be able to buy and sell information using First Virtual, in their own currencies, but for now, you must use a credit card which is able to make charges in United States dollars. ________________________________ When you apply for your First Virtual account, you'll be asked for three important pieces of information. First, you'll be asked for your "Full Name." This is the name that people will see who buy information from you, or sell information to you. It will be public information. Second, you'll be asked for your electronic mail address. As explained above, First Virtual does business through your electronic mailbox, and this mailbox should belong to you and only you. Third, you'll be asked for your "ID-Choice" -- the string that we base your First Virtual account identifier on. Your account identifier is the string that will identify you to sellers and to First Virtual when you buy information. First Virtual, unlike many other Internet services, allows you to choose most of your own account identifier. Anything easy to remember will do, but be careful. You will be giving this account identifier out over the Internet as part of every First Virtual transaction, so you shouldn't use any secret or sensitive information (such as your email password, your date of birth, etc.) that you wouldn't want to be giving out to random strangers. And since you want to keep it relatively confidential, you shouldn't use anything that's ridiculously easy for people who don't know you to guess (like your name or your email address). For your own protection, we'll change your ID-Choice a little bit in generating your actual account identifier, to make it a little more difficult to guess and to insure that no two people have the same Account ID. When the application process is complete, a confirmation will be returned via email with your actual account identifier. Your account identifier will match the ID-Choice you specified, except that it will have a short random word added to the front to assure its uniqueness and to make sure it's difficult to guess. Your account identifier is safe to send over the Internet because it is linked to your credit card number only deep within First Virtual's system, on a machine that is never connected to the Internet and is managed by our financial transaction partner. It also reveals nothing about you. Based on your account identifier, no seller (or other person) can discover your postal address, phone number, or even your email address (although a seller may be aware of your email address if you connected to his or her information server). Sellers are told your Full Name, but only for convenience and security, so that we can refer to you without sending your account identifier over the Internet more often than necessary. And if your account identifier were ever stolen, you would still be protected, because before we ever make any charge to your credit card, we ask via email for your explicit permission to do so. If you don't recognize the item that we are asking to charge you for, all you have to do is tell us, and we'll invalidate your account identifier and let you apply for a new one. So the worst that anyone can do who knows your account identifier is to make you go through the annoyance of having to change it. Since this can be annoying, choose something that a casual guess will not reveal. How to Apply for Your First Virtual Account Step One: Send Us Your Personal Information First, you need to give us your name, email address, and ID-Choice, so we can begin processing your application. There are a number of ways to do this: You can send an email message to apply@card.com, and our email server will send you a simple application form automatically When you get the application form, simply save the message in a file, and follow the instructions provided in the message to fill in the blanks. Then send the edited message back to us at newacct@card.com. As soon as we get it, we'll start processing your application. Or, if you prefer, you can use Telnet to connect to telnet.card.com to fill out the application interactively. (If you happen to be running X-Windows, you will be able to use a graphical interface to fill in the form, but neither X-Windows nor UNIX is required; any ordinary Telnet connection is fine.) Step Two: Tell Us Your Financial Information For your own protection, we don't ask for your credit card number or other sensitive information over the Internet. Instead, once First Virtual has started processing your application, you will receive an email message from us telling you to call our computer on the phone and give us your credit card number using your Touch-Tone keypad. You can make this call anytime, day or night. The email message will give you two things: a toll-free 800 telephone number to call (with a direct-dial number in case you are calling from outside the U.S. and Canada), and an "application number". This application number is just a randomly generated number that you use to tell us who is calling. Have your application number and your credit card ready when you call. A computer will ask you for each number in turn. Once they are successfully enterred, you will receive another confirmation via email, as described below. If you want an account that can only be used to sell information, send us a check without calling in your credit-card number. This can be useful if you are running your own server, as it prevents people from making you have to invalidate your account. Step Three: Begin Using Your Account! In a few hours, once the confidential information is moved to the proper machines, you will receive one more email message from First Virtual. This will acknowledge that your account is ready to use. It will also reveal the random word we put at the front of your ID-Choice to form your account identifier. With this information in hand, you are all ready to go out on the Internet and buy information using First Virtual! How to Buy Information Making an information purchase is easy. As usual on the Internet, finding the information you want can be harder than getting it once you've found it. Finding Information First Virtual is not in the business of finding information for you. We leave that to others. However, we do have an FTP site, a WWW home page, and the Infohaus, all of which offer information for sale. Watch this space for directions to the sources of information to buy that are made available by First Virtual; they will be added soon. Examining Information Information for sale will always be presented with a description (provided by the seller) and a price (set by the seller). The seller's price is the price you pay; First Virtual never charges you any fee for a purchase transaction. In keeping with the Internet's history of open information exchange, most sellers will allow you to download and review their information before requiring you to decide whether to keep and pay for it. (A few sellers may require you to agree to pay for information before they will let you download it, but that's against our rules.) When you find a seller offering something that looks interesting, at a price that looks reasonable, tell the seller's information server that you'd like a copy. Usually, the seller's server (or the Infohaus) will ask you to enter your account identifier before allowing you to download information; this is done so that the transaction can be reported to First Virtual, and we can ask you whether you agree to pay for the information, as described below. Here are the steps in some common kinds of First Virtual transactions: FTP Usually, when you log in to a First Virtual-compatible FTP server, you should use "fvftp" as your user name rather than "anonymous". Then give your First Virtual account identifier (rather than your email address) as your password. You can generally browse directory listings -- which will tell you how much the files cost -- for free. (If there is ever a charge for browsing, the server will notify you.) The prices of any files you decide to download will be billed to your First Virtual account, subject to your approval via email (see below). World Wide Web Browsers Sometimes when you attempt to follow a link (e.g., by clicking on a word), instead of the information you expect, you will see a screen telling you the price of the information and requesting your First Virtual account identifier. If you provide your account identifier, you will have access to the information, and your First Virtual account will be billed for its cost, subject to your approval via email (see below). Mailing List Subscriptions Some Internet mailing lists may charge a subscription fee that is payable through your First Virtual account. If you ask to subscribe to such a list, you will receive a message telling you the subscription fee and asking for your First Virtual account identifier. If you provide your account identifier, you will be added to the list and your account will be billed for the subscription fee, subject to your approval via email (see below). Confirming Your Purchases Shortly after a seller tells First Virtual that you bought information, we will forward a copy of the bill to your electronic mailbox for your inspection. The bill will include the seller's name and your name, the amount you are requested to pay, and a brief description of what you purchased. In addition, there may be a longer and more detailed description provided by the seller. If you are using our __________________________________ , a convenient form explaining the details will appear, allowing you to reply automatically. If you are using your regular email software, you should use the "reply" feature of your email software, taking care to preserve the transaction code number in the header, and including in your reply message just a single-word answer. This single word must be one of these three answers: YES By answering "yes", you indicate to us that you received the information, that you have examined it, that you have determined that the seller has provided value thereby, and that you authorize us to charge your credit card for the selling price. When we receive this message, we will bill your account and transfer the money to the seller's account. Because many sales will be for small amounts of money (anywhere from a few pennies to a few dollars), we may not bill your credit card immediately. Instead, several confirmed information purchases may be accumulated and posted to your credit card account as a single charge. In either case, you will eventually get a statement from us allowing you to reconcile your purchases. NO By answering "no", you indicate to us that you recognize the item described on the bill, but that you do not wish to pay for it. Perhaps the information you received was inaccurate, or did not apply to you, or wasn't what you expected. You didn't like the picture. The software was incompatible with your machine. You tripped over the power cord halfway through downloading it. You realize you already have a copy. For any reason or no reason, if you decide the information is not worth the price to you, just say no. (You should recognize that if you answer "no" too often, we may suspend your ability to use your First Virtual account identifier for future purchases. However, we take many factors into consideration, including the number of other buyers dissatisfied with this seller, and you should not have any problem unless you are intentionally abusing the system.) FRAUD By answering "fraud", you indicate that you have received a bill for information that you do not recognize. First Virtual understands that it is virtually impossible to keep something secret that passes through the Internet, especially if someone is looking for it, and it is conceivable that someone could use your account identifier without your permission. If you receive a bill from First Virtual relating to a sale or seller you do not recognize, simply respond with the word "fraud" and your account identifier will be invalidated for your own protection, preventing further abuse. We will be in touch with you about setting up a new account shortly after that. Reconciling Your Account Whenever we post a charge to your credit card, we will again send you electronic mail detailing the list of information purchases that make up that charge. This message will include a short code number that will also appear on your credit card statement. You can use this message, along with your credit card statement, to understand exactly what each First Virtual charge to your credit card was for. It's that easy! ------------------------------------------------------ How to Sell Information with a First Virtual Account Selling information is easy! If you have any knowledge you would like to share, and you think people would pay for it, you can make it available for sale to a global audience of millions just by getting a First Virtual account. Before You Start Before you can sell information using First Virtual, you must get a First Virtual account. (The same account is used for buying and for selling information, so if you already have an account for buying information, you're all set.) _____________ is eligible for an account, and you can sign up anytime, day or night, just by following a few ___________________ . In order to be paid for the information you sell, you also need to give us information about your checking account, which is where we will deposit the proceeds from any sales you make. (By next year, other ways of paying you will be supported, but for now, you must have a checking account in a United States bank in order to be paid for the information you sell.) To give us your checking account information, once you have your First Virtual account identifier, you'll need to send us a check for US $10 (ten dollars) drawn on the checking account you wish us to use to pay you. Be sure to write your First Virtual account identifier on the check in the "memo" space. We use the information on your check to record your account information; the $10.00 pays part of the cost of processing your new account. (When you set up your account, one of the email messages you'll receive will tell you the postal address where you should send your check.) Once we've processed your $10.00 check, your First Virtual account is all ready -- you can make information available for sale over the Internet, and receive payment for what you sell! What It Costs Other than the nominal fees we charge you when you first establish your account, First Virtual does not charge you any fee to be a seller unless you actually make a sale. And we never charge any fees to buyers -- the price you set for your information is the price that your buyers pay. If you do make a sale, we charge you a modest transaction fee of US $0.29 plus 2% of the value of the transaction. This fee is deducted from the sale price (the price you established, which was paid by the buyer) at the time that we deposit the remainder in your checking account. Finally, at the time that we settle with you, we deduct an additional charge of $1.00 for the cost of processing your payment and depositing the funds in your bank account. There are no other transaction fees charged to either the buyer or the seller. This means that: * When you sell something for $1.00, we charge you $0.31 and credit you with $0.69. * When you sell something for $10.00, we charge you $0.49 and credit you with $9.51. * When you sell something for $100.00, we charge you $2.29 and credit you with $97.71. If the above three transactions were the only sales you made before your next settlement date, we would total your net credits ($107.91), deduct the $1.00 processing fee, and credit $106.91 in your checking account. Using the Infohaus If you use the Infohaus ( _________ ), we charge you a nominal storage fee of US $1.50 per month per megabyte of storage space you use (minimum $1.50 per month), in addition to the transaction fees noted above. (A megabyte is the equivalent of about 600 typed double-spaced pages of text.) The storage fee is deducted from the proceeds of sales, or charged to your credit card if it is not covered by sales. We also charge an additional 8% of the sale price of each transaction we handle for you. An Excellent Value If you're operating your own server and your transactions are reasonably large, First Virtual's fee approaches 2%, out of which we pay all fees associated with the financial networks. There are no hidden charges. If you're using the Infohaus, the fees are more like 10%, but you don't even need your own computer, and you can go skiing while we sell your information for you. Considering that right now you probably can't sell information over the Internet at all, we think that charging you these nominal fees to cover our costs is extremely fair. Fees like these are in line with the commissions you'd have to pay if you accepted credit cards for payment, and it's much, much easier to sell information using First Virtual than it is to get a credit card merchant account. The Selling Process Generally speaking, the steps in a sale are the same whether you're using your own server, using the Infohaus, or contacting potential buyers directly: Using Your Own Server It's easy to make your own server compatible with First Virtual, so that buyers will be required to enter their First Virtual account identifiers before they can download your information. If you're running a _____ ___________________ _______ , here are the steps in a sale: 1. You make an information product available for sale, by placing it on your First Virtual-compatible FTP, World Wide Web, or email server. You set your own price, and, if possible, post a description along with the item so that potential buyers know what they're getting. 2. If you like, you advertise the product, publicize it in appropriate areas on the Internet, or rely on word-of-mouth to get the information to prospective buyers. 3. A prospective buyer finds out about the information, connects to your server, learns the price, and attempts to download a copy. 4. Your server asks for the buyer's First Virtual account identifier, which (if you wish) you verify before allowing the buyer to download a copy of the item. 5. Your server sends First Virtual an email message describing the buyer and seller (and providing their First Virtual account identifiers), the item bought, and the price. 6. First Virtual sends an email message to the buyer, asking whether he or she agrees to pay for the item. 7. We let you know, via email, whether the buyer says "yes" or "no". (If necessary, we make repeated attempts to contact the buyer.) 8. If the buyer agrees to pay, your checking account is credited for the sales price (minus our modest transaction fee) as soon as payment is received from the buyer. ________________________________ The ________ is our public-access information server, which anyone can use to sell information without having to go to the trouble of setting up and maintaining their own server and Internet connection -- you simply upload your information to the Infohaus and let us take care of the rest. If you use the Infohaus, here are the steps in a sale: 1. You make an information product available for sale, by uploading it to the Infohaus using simple software we provide you for free. You set your own price, and post a description along with the item so that potential buyers know what they're getting. 2. If you like, you advertise the product, publicize it in appropriate areas on the Internet, or rely on word-of-mouth to get the information to prospective buyers. Then you go to the beach, or go away to college, or go about your business, and let First Virtual take care of the details. 3. A prospective buyer sees the information on the Infohaus, and attempts to download a copy. 4. The Infohaus automatically verifies the prospective buyer's First Virtual account identifier, then allows the buyer to download a copy of the item. 5. The Infohaus automatically sends First Virtual an email message describing the buyer and seller (and providing their First Virtual account identifiers), the item bought, and the price. 6. First Virtual sends an email message to the buyer, asking whether he or she agrees to pay for the item. 7. We let you know, via email, whether the buyer says "yes" or "no". (If necessary, we make repeated attempts to contact the buyer.) 8. If the buyer agrees to pay, your checking account is credited for the sales price (minus our modest transaction fee and the nominal Infohaus storage fee, if applicable) as soon as payment is received from the buyer. 9. The Infohaus bills your First Virtual account periodically, based on disk space consumed and sales completed. Contacting Buyers Directly There is no requirement that you use an automated server to sell information via First Virtual, although virtually all sellers will. If you have an information product which you would like to sell to another First Virtual accountholder, you may communicate with our server manually (with email messages you compose yourself). You might conceivably want to do this if you had an information product with a very limited audience of people you knew personally, and you didn't want to go even to the minimal trouble of uploading it to the Infohaus. We think using the Infohaus would be easier, but you're free to communicate with our server manually, as long as your messages conform to the ________________________________ . This might also be the easiest way to distribute information to selected individuals, rather than to anyone who can contact our Infohaus. Letting Buyers Try Before They Buy Although we cannot enforce the require that you to let buyers download your information before making a commitment to pay, we feel strongly that it is in your interest, as well as theirs, to do so, and we strongly encourage you not to require payment in advance. Partly, this is because what makes the Internet community so fascinating is its commitment to the open exchange of information, and requiring payment in advance goes against that very strong principle. But there are practical considerations as well. You're free to set any terms of sale that you and your buyers can agree upon, but we think that the terms we suggest -- letting buyers examine your information before having to decide whether to pay for it -- will result in substantially more sales and higher revenues for you. If you require payment in advance, a very large proportion of your prospective buyers will simply disappear, and your revenues will drop accordingly. Most people will be unwilling to commit in advance to paying for something they haven't seen yet. You should be reassured by the fact that under the economics of Internet commerce, you lose little or nothing if a few buyers examine your information and then decide not to pay for it, because it costs you nothing to "manufacture" another copy for the next buyer, and you don't have to pay for returned merchandise, repairs, or restocking, as you would if you were running a store in the real world. Verifying a Buyer's Account Identifier If you want, you can check a prospective buyer's First Virtual account identifier to make sure it is valid before you allow him or her to get information from your server. There are several ways you can do this, and we also make software available that makes it easy for your server to do it automatically. Using Finger If you have access to the common information utility known as Finger, you can use it to verify that a First Virtual account identifier is valid, by fingering the account on card.com. You should leave out any spaces, commas, and other non-alphanumeric characters in the account identifier when you type it. For example, if a buyer claims to have the account identifier "Gold Finger #8", you can verify that it is valid by typing "finger goldfinger8@card.com" (or the equivalent command on your machine). Using Telnet If you have access to Telnet, you can use it to connect to telnet.card.com and view our menu. Select the appropriate menu choice to request an account inquiry, and enter the account identifier to learn the status of the account. Using Email You can also send an email message to inquiry@card.com, putting the account identifier you wish to verify into the Subject line of your message. Our server will reply to you via email with status information for the account. Using the FV-API If you have the "fv" program installed (available from __________ under pub/code/fv-api) you can use fv checkat card.com account to see the status of an account. _________________ Each time you make a sale, you need to submit a bill to First Virtual via email, so that we can forward it to the buyer and ask whether he or she agrees to pay for the item. If you are using the Infohaus, or your own First Virtual-compatible server, this will probably happen automatically each time information is downloaded by a prospective buyer, but you should know a little about how it works. We use the term "bill" here because it's familiar, but technically the email message we're talking about is not really a bill; we call it a "transfer-request". A transfer-request isn't a bill because, under the terms of his or her First Virtual account, a buyer is not obligated to pay for any piece of information until he or she receives this transfer-request and responds "yes". A transfer-request may be submitted via email to "transfer@card.com", or you may submit it interactively by connecting via Telnet to "telnet.card.com" and selecting the appropriate choice from the menu. Your transfer-request must contain several pieces of information in order for our server to be able to interpret it and take the necessary action: * It must contain a BUYER: field and a SELLER: field, indicating the First Virtual account identifiers for the buyer and the seller. * It must contain an AMOUNT: field, which specifies the sales price. * It must contain a CURRENCY: field, which specifies the currency that the sales price is expressed in. At present, the only supported CURRENCY: is United States dollars (abbreviated "USD"), but in 1995 First Virtual will begin supporting other currencies as well, automatically doing currency conversions for you. * Finally, it must contain a DESCRIPTION: field, a short (40- character) description of the information purchased so that the buyer can identify it. Here is a sample transfer-request describing the sale of a set of short stories for $5.00: ----------------------------------------------------- To: transfer@card.com From: (seller's email address) Subject: Date: September 15, 1994 BUYER: goldfinger #8 SELLER: Blue Tormented Intellectual AMOUNT: 5.00 CURRENCY: USD DESCRIPTION: The Ravioli Chronicles - short stories ----------------------------------------------------- There are also a number of optional fields you can supply: * One is TRANSFER-TYPE:, which should be "info-sale", "cost- recovery", "donation", or "usage-fee". This field is currently ignored by First Virtual, but if you use it, it's passed along to the buyer. * Another is TRANSFER-ID:, which is a short string between angle brackets that you can use to identify the transaction for your own records; you may use letters and numbers, periods, and one @-sign in it, like this: <bill.09.12.1994@my.computer>. * A third optional field is DELIVERY-STATUS:, which should be either "pending" or "delivered." This, again, is ignored by First Virtual but is passed along to the buyer; it defaults to "delivered." Finally, anything else you put in the body of a transfer-request will be delivered to the user as a "message from the seller." In here you can put a longer description of what you sold, or a plea to donate to a worthy cause, or a description of other products available from your server, or whatever else you'd like. Getting Paid Once First Virtual receives your transfer-request, we will generate a email message to the buyer, asking the buyer if the information was satisfactory. This message is called a transfer-query. It includes a code number that First Virtual generates, allowing us to match up queries with responses to them. Eventually, one of four things will happen: * If the buyer agrees to pay, you will receive email from First Virtual right away telling you so. Once the buyer has agreed to enough purchases that it makes sense to submit an actual credit-card charge, the buyer's credit card will be charged for all the purchases at once. Some time after that, once we know the buyer has paid his bill, we will depsosit the proceeds of the sale in your checking account, less our nominal transaction fee. * If the buyer declines to pay, you will receive email from First Virtual right away telling you so. * If the buyer never answers the transfer-query, in spite of repeated queries being sent, the buyer's account is automatically suspended. If enough time passes (i.e., months), you will eventually be told that the buyer declined the purchase. * If the buyer replies that he or she believes the account identifier has been used without permission and charge is fraudulent, you will be notified by email; the account identifier will be invalidated and you will not receive payment. As a seller, you take all the risk that this may happen occasionally, although the risk is very low, since it costs you nothing to "manufacture" a new copy of your information for the next buyer. Reconciling Your Account Just as a buyer does not actually get billed until enough charges have accumulated, a seller does not get actually paid until enough credits have accumulated to make it worthwhile, or until a certain amount of time has passed. Once this happens, money will be deposited directly into your checking account, and an email message detailing the payments that went into that deposit will be sent to you. For our protection, First Virtual "ages" (delays payment of) funds going to a seller. This is to prevent problems that might arise if buyers agreed to pay via email, and then refused to pay when their credit card bill arrived. Although this delay will not exceed a reasonable period necessary to protect us from legitimate risks, it is entirely at our discretion. Chargebacks Occasionally, it's possible that a buyer will decide to complain to a credit card company about a charge. If this happens, you will be sent an email message detailing what happened, and the portion of the buyer's credit-card charge that went to you will be deducted from your account again. (Incidentally, the buyer will also lose the ability to buy information in the future using First Virtual, because he or she was already given one chance to decline paying for the item, and nevertheless agreed to pay.)