A Study on the Internet Security and its Implication for E-Commerce in Yemen

Introduction

With web II technology, firms are moving from traditional physical sales and service operations towards e-commerce as well as e-business. Electronic and dynamic websites in today’s world of business are considered as the “click-and-mortar”, “clicks-and-bricks” or “clicks and flips” of today’s companies (Laudon & Traver, 2008). Yemen, over a long historical period, is a country of commerce and its people are famous for their trading and business activities. When the Internet project entered Yemen, the Yemeni business organizations faced challenging competition to have a pronounced presence on the web. The aims behind this growing presence are commercial and for the purpose of reducing communication costs. Most of the companies in Yemen started to build their own websites on the web and started using them to communicate with both current and potential customers. In study conducted by Saeed et al. (2005), results show that firms with high electronic commerce competence exhibit superior performance and that customer value generated through Web site functionality partially mediates this relationship. Furthermore, firms have now started to realize the danger that comes from using this modern method of business, which is the difficulty of having a secure business. Laudon and Traver (2008) highlighted that the e-commerce environment holds threats for both consumers and merchants; therefore, unsecure operations can cause a firm to lose successful business.