RFC 2706
Network Working Goup D. Eastlake
Request for Comments: 2706 IBM
Category: Informational T. Goldstein
Brodia
October 1999
ECML v1: Field Names for E-Commerce
Status of this Memo
This memo provides information for the Internet community. It does
not specify an Internet standard of any kind. Distribution of this
memo is unlimited.
Copyright Notice
Copyright (C) The Internet Society (1999). All Rights Reserved.
IESG Note
This document is the output of a vendor consortium, and is not the
output of an IETF Working Group. Implementors of this specification
are warned that this data model is heavily biased toward conventions
used in the United States, and the English language. As such it is
unlikely to be suitable for international or multilingual use in the
global Internet.
Abstract
Customers are frequently required to enter substantial amounts of
information at an Internet merchant site in order to complete a
purchase or other transaction, especially the first time they go
there. A standard set of information fields is defined as the first
version of an Electronic Commerce Modeling Language (ECML) so that
this task can be more easily automated, for example by wallet
software that could fill in fields. Even for the manual data entry
case, customers will be less confused by varying merchant sites if a
substantial number adopt these standard fields.
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Acknowledgements
The following persons, in alphabetic order, contributed substantially
to the material herein:
George Burne, Trintech
Joe Coco, Microsoft
Kevin Weller, Visa
Table of Contents
1. Introduction................................................2
1.1 Background.................................................2
1.2 Relationship to Other Standards............................3
1.3 Areas Deferred to Future Versions..........................4
2. Using The Fields............................................4
2.1 Presentation of the Fields.................................4
2.2 Methods and Flow of Setting the Fields.....................5
2.3 HTML Example...............................................6
3. Field Definitions...........................................7
4. End Notes...................................................9
5. Security Considerations....................................10
References....................................................11
Authors' Addresses............................................12
Full Copyright Statement......................................13
1. Introduction
1.1 Background
Today, numerous merchants are successfully conducting business on the
Internet using HTML-based forms. The data formats used in these forms
varies considerably from one merchant to another. End-users find the
diversity confusing and the process of manually filling in these
forms to be tedious. The result is that many merchant forms,
reportedly around two thirds, are abandoned during the fill in
process.
Software tools called electronic wallets can help this situation. A
digital wallet is an application or service that assists consumers in
conducting online transactions by allowing them to store billing,
shipping, payment, and preference information and to use this
information to automatically complete merchant interactions. This
greatly simplifies the check-out process and minimizes the need for a
consumer to complete a merchant's form every time. Digital wallets
that fill forms have been successfully built into browsers, as helper
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applications to browsers, as stand-alone applications, as browser
plug-ins, and as server-based applications. But the proliferation of
electronic wallets has been hampered by the lack of standards.
ECML (Electronic Commerce Modeling Language, ) Version
1 provides a set of simple guidelines for web merchants that will
enable electronic wallets from multiple vendors to fill in their web
forms. The end-result is that more consumers will find shopping on
the web to be easy and compelling.
The set of fields documented herein was developed by the
Wallet/Merchant Standards Alliance (www.ecml.org) which now includes,
in alphabetic order, the following:
American Express (www.americanexpress.com)
AOL (www.aol.com)
Brodia (www.brodia.com)
Compaq (www.compaq.com)
CyberCash (www.cybercash.com)
Discover (www.discovercard.com)
FSTC (www.fstc.org)
IBM (www.ibm.com)
Mastercard (www.mastercard.com)
Microsoft (www.microsoft.com)
Novell (www.novell.com)
SETCo (www.setco.org)
Sun Microsystems (www.sun.com)
Trintech (www.trintech.com)
Visa (www.visa.com)
The fields are derived from and consistent with the W3C P3P base data
schema at
.
1.2 Relationship to Other Standards
ECML Version 1 is not a replacement or alternative to SSL/TLS [RFC
2246], SET [SET], XML [XML], or IOTP [IOTP]. These are important
standards that provide functionality such as non-repudiatable
transactions, automatable payment scheme selection, and smart card
support.
ECML may be used with any payment mechanism. It simply allows a
merchant to publish consistent simple web forms.
Multiple wallets and multiple merchants plan to interoperably support
ECML. This is an open standard. ECML is designed to be simple.
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Version 1 of the project adds no new technology to the web. A
merchant can adopt ECML and gain the support of these multiple
Wallets by making very simple changes to the HTML pages that they
currently use to support their customers. Use of ECML requires no
license.
1.3 Areas Deferred to Future Versions
Standardization of information fields transmitted from the merchant
to the consumer, considerations for business purchasing cards, non-
card payment mechanisms, wallet activation, privacy related
mechanisms, additional payment mechanisms, and any sort of
"negotiation" were among the areas deferred to consideration in
future versions. Hidden or other special fields were minimized. The
primary target was North American consumer to merchant electronic
commerce.
2. Using The Fields
To conform to this document, the field names shall be as listed in
section 3 below. Note: this does not impose any restriction on the
user visible labeling of fields, just on their names as used in
communication with the merchant.
2.1 Presentation of the Fields
There is no necessary implication as to the order or manner of
presentation. Some merchants may wish to ask for more information,
some less by omitting fields. Some merchants may ask for the
information they want in one HTML form on one web page, others may
ask for parts of the information at different times on different
pages. For example, it is common to ask for "ship to" information
earlier, so shipping cost can be computed, before the payment method
information. Some merchants may require that all the information
they request be provided while other make much information optional,
etc.
There is no way with version 1 of ECML to indicate what fields the
merchant considers mandatory. From the point of view of customer
software, all fields are optional to complete. However, the merchant
may give an error or re-present a request for information if some
field it requires is not completed, just as it may if a field is
completed in a manner it considers erroneous.
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2.2 Methods and Flow of Setting the Fields
There are a variety of methods of communication possible between the
customer and the merchant by which the merchant can indicate what
fields they want that the consumer can provide. Probably the easiest
to use for currently deployed software is as fields in an HTML
[HTML4.0] form. Other possibilities are to use the W3C P3P protocol
or the IOTP Authenticate transaction [IOTP].
User action or the appearance of the Ecom_SchemaVersion field are
examples of triggers that could be used to initiate a facility
capable of filling in fields. It is required that the
Ecom_SchemaVersion field, which is usually a hidden field, be
included on every web page that has any "Ecom_" fields.
Because web pages can load very slowly, it may not be clear to an
automated field fill-in function when it is finished filling in
fields on a web page. For this reason, it is recommended that the
Ecom_SchemaVersion field be the last "Ecom_" field on a web page.
Merchant requests for information can extend over several web pages.
Without further provision, a facility could either require re-
starting on each page or possibly violate or appear to violate
privacy by continuing to fill in fields for pages beyond with end of
the transaction with a particular merchant. For this reason the
Ecom_TransactionComplete field, which is normally hidden, is
provided. It is recommended that it appear on the last web page
involved in a transaction, just before an Ecom_SchemaVersion field,
so that multi-web-page automated field fill in logic could know when
to stop if it chooses to check for this field.
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2.3 HTML Example
An example in HTML might be as follows:
eCom Fields Example
After all of the pages are submitted, the merchant will reply with a
confirmation page informing both the user and the wallet that the
transaction is complete.
eCom Transaction Complete Example
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3. Field Definitions
The fields are listed below along with the minimum data entry size to
allow. Note that these fields are hierarchically organized as
indicated by the embedded underscore ("_") characters. Appropriate
consumer to merchant transmission mechanisms may use this to request
and send aggregates, such as Ecom_Payment_Card_ExpDate to encompass
all the date components or Ecom_ShipTo to encompass all the ship to
components that the consumer is willing to provide. The marshalling
and unmarshalling of the components of such aggregates depends on the
data transfer protocol used.
IMPORTANT NOTE: "MIN" in the table below is the MINIMUM DATA SIZE TO
ALLOW FOR ON DATA ENTRY. It is NOT the minimum size for valid
contents of the field and merchant software should, in most cases, be
prepared to receive a longer or shorter value. Merchant dealing with
areas where, for example, the state/province name or phone number is
longer than the "Min" given below must obviously permit longer data
entry. In some cases, however, there is a maximum size that makes
sense and where this is the case, it is documented in a Note for the
field.
FIELD NAME Min Notes
ship to title Ecom_ShipTo_Postal_Name_Prefix 4 ( 1)
ship to first name Ecom_ShipTo_Postal_Name_First 15
ship to middle name Ecom_ShipTo_Postal_Name_Middle 15 ( 2)
ship to last name Ecom_ShipTo_Postal_Name_Last 15
ship to name suffix Ecom_ShipTo_Postal_Name_Suffix 4 ( 3)
ship to street line1 Ecom_ShipTo_Postal_Street_Line1 20 ( 4)
ship to street line2 Ecom_ShipTo_Postal_Street_Line2 20 ( 4)
ship to street line3 Ecom_ShipTo_Postal_Street_Line3 20 ( 4)
ship to city Ecom_ShipTo_Postal_City 22
ship to state/province Ecom_ShipTo_Postal_StateProv 2 ( 5)
ship to zip/postal code Ecom_ShipTo_Postal_PostalCode 14 ( 6)
ship to country Ecom_ShipTo_Postal_CountryCode 2 ( 7)
ship to phone Ecom_ShipTo_Telecom_Phone_Number 10 ( 8)
ship to email Ecom_ShipTo_Online_Email 40 ( 9)
bill to title Ecom_BillTo_Postal_Name_Prefix 4 ( 1)
bill to first name Ecom_BillTo_Postal_Name_First 15
bill to middle name Ecom_BillTo_Postal_Name_Middle 15 ( 2)
bill to last name Ecom_BillTo_Postal_Name_Last 15
bill to name suffix Ecom_BillTo_Postal_Name_Suffix 4 ( 3)
bill to street line1 Ecom_BillTo_Postal_Street_Line1 20 ( 4)
bill to street line2 Ecom_BillTo_Postal_Street_Line2 20 ( 4)
bill to street line3 Ecom_BillTo_Postal_Street_Line3 20 ( 4)
bill to city Ecom_BillTo_Postal_City 22
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bill to state/province Ecom_BillTo_Postal_StateProv 2 ( 5)
bill to zip/postal code Ecom_BillTo_Postal_PostalCode 14 ( 6)
bill to country Ecom_BillTo_Postal_CountryCode 2 ( 7)
bill to phone Ecom_BillTo_Telecom_Phone_Number 10 ( 8)
bill to email Ecom_BillTo_Online_Email 40 ( 9)
receiptTo title Ecom_ReceiptTo_Postal_Name_Prefix 4 ( 1)
receiptTo first name Ecom_ReceiptTo_Postal_Name_First 15
receiptTo middle name Ecom_ReceiptTo_Postal_Name_Middle 15 ( 2)
receiptTo last name Ecom_ReceiptTo_Postal_Name_Last 15
receiptTo name suffix Ecom_ReceiptTo_Postal_Name_Suffix 4 ( 3)
receiptTo street line1 Ecom_ReceiptTo_Postal_Street_Line1 20 ( 4)
receiptTo street line2 Ecom_ReceiptTo_Postal_Street_Line2 20 ( 4)
receiptTo street line3 Ecom_ReceiptTo_Postal_Street_Line3 20 ( 4)
receiptTo city Ecom_ReceiptTo_Postal_City 22
receiptTo state/province Ecom_ReceiptTo_Postal_StateProv 2 ( 5)
receiptTo postal code Ecom_ReceiptTo_Postal_PostalCode 14 ( 6)
receiptTo country Ecom_ReceiptTo_Postal_CountryCode 2 ( 7)
receiptTo phone Ecom_ReceiptTo_Telecom_Phone_Number 10 ( 8)
receiptTo email Ecom_ReceiptTo_Online_Email 40 ( 9)
name on card Ecom_Payment_Card_Name 30 (10)
card type Ecom_Payment_Card_Type 4 (11)
card number Ecom_Payment_Card_Number 19 (12)
card verification value Ecom_Payment_Card_Verification 4 (13)
card expire date day Ecom_Payment_Card_ExpDate_Day 2 (14)
card expire date month Ecom_Payment_Card_ExpDate_Month 2 (15)
card expire date year Ecom_Payment_Card_ExpDate_Year 4 (16)
card protocols Ecom_Payment_Card_Protocol 20 (17)
consumer order ID Ecom_ConsumerOrderID 20 (18)
schema version Ecom_SchemaVersion 30 (19)
end transaction flag Ecom_TransactionComplete - (20)
FIELD NAME Min Notes
IMPORTANT NOTE: "MIN" in the table above is the MINIMUM DATA SIZE TO
ALLOW FOR ON DATA ENTRY. It is NOT the minimum size for valid
contents of the field and merchant software should, in most cases, be
prepared to receive a longer or shorter value. Merchant dealing with
areas where, for example, the state/province name or phone number is
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longer than the "Min" given below must obviously permit longer data
entry. In some cases, however, there is a maximum size that makes
sense and this is documented in a Note for the field.
4. End Notes
( 1) For example: Mr., Mrs., Ms., Dr. This field is commonly not
used.
( 2) May also be used for middle initial
( 3) For example: Ph.D., Jr. (Junior), 3rd, Esq. (Esquire). This
field is commonly not used.
( 4) Address lines must be filled in the order line1, then line2,
last line3.
( 5) 2 characters are the minimum for the US and Canada, other
countries may require longer fields. For the US use 2 character
US Postal state abbreviation.
( 6) Minimum field lengths for Postal Code will vary based on
international market served. Use 5 character or 5+4 ZIP for the
US and 6 character postal code for Canada. The size given, 14,
is believed to be the maximum required anywhere in the world.
( 7) Use [ISO 3166] standard two letter codes
for
country names.
( 8) 10 digits are the minimum for numbers local to the North
American Numbering Plan (: US, Canada and
a number of smaller Caribbean and Pacific nations (but not
Cuba)), other countries may require longer fields. Telephone
numbers are complicated by differing international access codes,
variant punctuation of area/city codes within countries,
confusion caused by the fact that the international access code
in the NANP region is usually the same as the "country code" for
that area (1), etc. It will probably be necessary to use
heuristics or human examination based on the telephone number
and addresses given to figure out how to actually call a
customer. It is recommend that an "x" be placed before extension
numbers.
( 9) For example: jsmith@example.com
(10) The name of the cardholder.
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(11) Use the first 4 letters of the association name: American
Express=AMER; Diners Club=DINE; Discover=DISC; JCB=JCB;
Mastercard=MAST; Visa=VISA.
(12) Includes the check digit at end but no spaces or hyphens [ISO
7812]. The Min given, 19, is the longest number permitted under
the ISO standard.
(13) An additional cardholder verification number printed on the card
(but not embossed or recorded on the magnetic stripe) such as
American Express' CIV, MasterCard's CVC2, and Visa's CVV2
values.
(14) The day of the month. Values: 1-31
(15) The month of the year. Jan - 1, Feb - 2, March - 3, etc.;
Values: 1-12
(16) The value in the wallet cell is always four digits, e.g., 1999,
2000, 2001, ...
(17) A space separated list of protocols available in connection with
the specified card. Initial list of case insensitive tokens:
none, set, & setcert. "Set" indicates usable with SET protocol
(i.e., is in a SET wallet) but does not have a SET certificate.
"Setcert" indicates same but does have a set certificate.
"None" indicates that automatic field fill is operating but
there is no SET wallet or the card is not entered in any SET
wallet.
(18) A unique order ID generated by the consumer software.
(19) URI indicating version of this set of fields. Usually a hidden
field. Equal to "http://www.ecml.org/version/1.0" for this
version.
(20) A flag to indicate that this web-page/aggregate is the final one
for this transaction. Usually a hidden field.
5. Security Considerations
The information called for by many of these fields is sensitive and
should be protected if being sent over the public Internet or through
other channels where it can be observed. Mechanisms for such
protection are not specified herein but channel encryption such as
SSL/TLS [RFC 2246] or IPSec [RFC 2411] would be appropriate in many
cases.
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User control over release of such information is needed to protect
the user's privacy.
Any multi-web-page or other multi-aggregate field fill in or data
provision mechanism should check for the Ecom_TransactionComplete
field and cease automated fill when it is encountered until fill is
further authorized.
References
ISO 3166 - Codes for the representation of names of countries,
ISO 7812 - Identification card - Identification of issuers - Part 1:
Numbering system
HTTP4.0 - HTML 4.0 Specification,
RFC 2026 - Bradner, S., "The Internet Standards Process -- Revision
3", BCP 9, RFC 2026, October 1996.
RFC 2246 - Dierks, T. and C. Allen, "The TLS Protocol: Version 1.0",
RFC 2246, January 1999.
RFC 2411 - Thayer, R., Doraswany, N. and R. Glenn, "IP Security:
Document Roadmap", RFC 2411, November 1998.
IOTP - Internet Open Trading Protocol, being specified in the
IETF TRADE working group, D. Burdett
SET - Secure Electronic Transaction,
XML - Extensible Markup Language (XML) 1.0,
, T. Bray, J.
Paoli, C. M. Sperberg-McQueen
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Authors' Addresses
Donald E. Eastlake, 3rd
IBM, J1-N63
17 Skyline Drive
Hawthorne, NY 10532 USA
Phone: +1-914-784-7913
Fax: +1-914-784-3833
EMail: dee3@us.ibm.com
Ted Goldstein
Brodia Networks, Inc.
221 Main Street, Suite 1530
San Francisco, CA 94105 USA
Phone: +1 415-495-3100 x222
Fax: +1 415-495-3177
EMail: tgoldstein@brodia.com
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Full Copyright Statement
Copyright (C) The Internet Society (1999). All Rights Reserved.
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Acknowledgement
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