Goal of this review

• Present the various WD of the Micropayment Initiative and how they relate.
• Review the "Common Markup Micropayment Per-fee-links" WD going for Last Call.
• Discuss dependencies with other Groups
• Discuss the status of this activity (participation, briefing package/charter, etc.)

General comments/questions on the code should be sent to the public micropay mailing list

History

• W3C Members have asked for a Micropayment  framework at the ECommerce IG meeting (Feb 98 Paris)
• Micropayment Initiative was created and announced  by Josef Dietl 18 Jun 1998  according to  briefing package/charter.
• Group had only met once before my arrival in Sept 98.
• Decided to merge the 2 WGs  (Markup WG and API WG ) in 99 - due to lack of participants.

Micropayment Initiative

Micropayment Working Groups

• Micropayment Markup Working Group:
  The embedding of payment information in Web pages
  
• Micropayment API Working Group:
  The API to communicate from browser to multiple wallets

Working Groups

The Micro Bazaar !

• Changed W3C staff from Josef to Thierry

Participation:

• Reasonable: Amir Herzberg IBM, Mark Manasse COMPAQ and Phillipe Michon FRANCE TELECOM (keys players)
• People coming in/out
• Not in good standing: Jon Ziegler SUN, Charles Golvin CITIBANK, Pieter van der GlobeID, LindenRoberto Tasso CSELT S.p.A,  
• Left : Microsoft.
• New comers: None yet

Serious lack of participants and commitment.

Working Groups status

Meetings:

• Primary meeting mechanism: mailing list
• Weekly phone meeting
• Quarterly face-to-face meeting :
  1. November 5th 98 in Paris and meeting minutes
  2. March 29th-30th  99 in Tel Aviv and meeting minutes
  3. June 14th-15th  99 in Boston and minutes.

Deliverables

• I am the unique editor for all working drafts.
• Producing deliverables : existing public draft about to go to Last Call, a second draft about to be released to public.
• Follow the W3C process to Proposed Recommendation.

Current State

• The group is late, (out of milestones of current charter) but going on forward slowly.
• Looking for more participants (David Burdett/ Donald Eastlake from IOTP at IETF).
• 1998 was a bad year for micropayment:
  DigiCash Ecash went bankrupt, CyberCash: CyberCoin and First Virtual critical state.

Micropayment : Intro

Payment Range from 0.1 cent to 1 Dollar

Alternative revenue for ICP to:

• Advertising
• Subscriptions

All micropayment systems:

• Save costs; monetary (transactions) and network (packet round trips)
• Embed vital information in hyperlinks, using proprietary encodings

Merchant supporting multiple payment systems:

• Embed in Web page payment information specific to each system
• Redundancy of information and extra work

=> Need for a common markup supported by multiple payment systems

Micropayment basic Architecture

Markup WG: Goal &Requirements

The Common Markup Micropayment Per-fee-links Working Draft  - Public release-

• An extensible and interoperable way to embed in a Web page all the information necessary to initialize a micropayment

Requirements for embedding micropayment information in web pages are:

• Embedding SHOULD use standard (or de-facto standard) features which are implemented by most currently available browsers.
• Embedding MUST be kept simple, in the form of "click and pay",
• Embedding MUST minimize network-packet round trips,
• Embedding MUST be common to all micropayment schemes.

Markup WG: Micropayments fields

Micropayments fields

Parameter Name	Short Description	Format	Requirements
price	Specifies amount and currency	character string	MUST be provided
textlink	Textual description of what the client is requesting. The text source of the per-fee-link.	character string	MUST be provided
imagelink	Graphical description of what the client is client is requesting. The graphic source of the per-fee-link. (here textlink provides a textual equivalent of the image for accessibility).	URI	MAY be provided
requesturl	Identifies what the client is actually requesting	URI	MUST be provided
payment system	Identifies all the micropayment systems supported by the merchant and can also provide information unique to each payment system	URI character string	MUST be provided MAY be provided
buyurl	Identifies what the client is buying	URI	MAY be provided
mpbaseurl	Provides a common prefix for the buyurl and requesturl parameters	absolute URI	MAY be provided
title	Titles the content of what the client is buying	character string	SHOULD be provided
description	Describes in details the content of what the client is buying	URI	MAY be provided
merchantname	Specifies a merchant designation	character string	MAY be provided
duration	Indicates the time after purchase any URI can be retrieved without further payment.	integer number	MAY  be provided
expiration	Indicates a date until which the offer from the merchant is valid.	character string	MAY be provided
target	Specifies the name of a frame where a document is to be loaded.	character string	MAY be provided
hreflang	Specifies the base language of the resource designated by the per-fee-link.	character string	MAY be provided
type	Specifies the content type of  the linked resource, designated by the per-fee-link.	character string	MAY be provided
accesskey	Assigns an access key to a per-fee-link.	character string	MAY be provided
charset	Specifies the character encoding of the resource designated by the per-fee-link.	character string	MAY be provided
key	Specifies a type of signature supported and a default key length.	character string	MAY be provided

Markup WG: Encoding information in HTML pages

Embedding micropayment information in HTML pages using encoding for Plug-in or Applet

• Per Fee Links are specified with the <OBJECT> or <APPLET > elements from HTML.
• Micropayment parameters are encoded as attributes of the <PARAM> elements

Example: Fee Link using OBJECT element

<BODY>
<OBJECT codetype="application/java" 
classid="http://www.miamachina.org/applet/micropayment.class">
<PARAM name="mpbaseurl" value="http://www.merchant.org/shop" valuetype="ref">
<PARAM name="merchantname" value="shopandpay" valuetype="data">
<PARAM name="buyurl" value="catalog.html" valuetype="ref">
<PARAM name="requesturl" value="page.html" valuetype="ref">
<PARAM name="textlink" value="click here to buy the product" valuetype="data">
<PARAM name="price" value="+0.01USD" valuetype="data">
<PARAM name="title" value="Title of what you are actually buying" valuetype="data"> 
<PARAM name="duration" value="60" valuetype="data">
<PARAM name="expiration" value="1999-11-05T13:15:30Z" valuetype="data">
<PARAM name="1.mpname" value="micropay" valuetype="data">
<PARAM name="1.mpurl" value="http://www.foo.it/micropay" valuetype="ref">
<PARAM name="1.specific" value="124rfdetg14ft58rdef21f4251" valuetype="data">
<PARAM name="1.mpbaseurl" value="http://www.merchant.it/" valuetype="ref">
<PARAM name="2.mpname" value="millipayment" valuetype="data">
<PARAM name="2.mpurl" value="http://www.foo.it/millipay" valuetype="ref">
<PARAM name="2.specific" value="475rdg546tfeww12wcft254hy4" valuetype="data">
<PARAM name="2.mpbaseurl" value="http://www.merchant.fr/"valuetype="ref">
A per-fee-link that needs an applet for rendering.
</OBJECT></BODY>
more example

Expressing micropayment information using RDF

• Per Fee Links are specified with the <A> element from HTML 4.0
• Micropayment information are metadata about Fee links
• Encoded in RDF and shipped with the HTML page (internal or external to the content)

Example: Encoding using RDF

<HEAD> <TITLE>Example of Fee Link - Abbreviated RDF Syntax
Encoding</TITLE>
<rdf:RDF
  xmlns:rdf="http://www.w3.org/1999/02/22-rdf-syntax-ns#"
  xmlns:mp="http://www.w3.org/schema/micropay#">
  <rdf:description about="feelink-1"
    mp:price="+1E-2FRF" 
    mp:duration="60" 
    mp:expiration="1999-11-05T13:15:30Z">
    <mp:mpbaseurl rdf:resource="http://www.merchant.org/shop"/>
    <mp:buyurl rdf:resource="catalog.html"/>
    <mp:requesturl rdf:resource="page.html"/>
    <mp:paymentsystem>
     <rdf:alt>
      <rdf:li>
          <mp:Paymentoption rdf:ID="micropay1" system="http://www.foo.it/micropay1"
           rdf:value="xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx"/>
       </rdf:li>
       <rdf:li>
          <mp:Paymentoption rdf:ID="micropay2" system="http://www.foo.it/micropay2"
           rdf:value="yyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy"/>
       </rdf:li>
      </rdf:alt>
     </mp:paymentsystem>
    </rdf:description>
   </rdf:RDF>
</HEAD>

<BODY>
<A href="http://www.miamachina.org/page.html" id="feelink-1" >
Buy the page through this per-fee-link </A> </BODY>

API WG: Per Fee Link Handler (PFLH) Specifications

PFLH is a common module - Applet or Plug-in:

1. Receives from the merchant server the per-fee-link information embedded in the HTML page,
2. Allows consumer to select wallet and account to use,
3. Sends relevant information to micropayment client wallet (possibly a remote server wallet),
4. Receives processed information from the wallet (e.g. final processed price, URL, etc.),
5. Displays in the browser these information to the customer, performing the basic User Interface,
6. Allows consumer to click to buy,
7. Informs wallet if consumer is buying,
8. Receives payment order from the wallet,
9. Create the HTTP request with the payment order to be send to the merchant (thru the browser)
10. Receives receipt/content from the merchant server.

PFLH UI main requirements:

• MUST allow user to select manually a wallet and account from a list of wallets installed on his machine, or a remote server wallet.
• SHOULD support the notion of a `default selected` wallet and account.
• MUST show the description and processed price by the wallet of the item being offered, when the cursor is over the per-fee-link.
• SHOULD display that the per-fee-link is free if the item was already bought previously (and duration time has not expired yet)
• Processing of the price by the wallet can be done on loading of the page or when going over the current per-fee-link
• MUST display the price before the user clicks to buy.
• MUST allow the user to select an account and wallet.
• MUST allow the user to invoke the selected wallet.
• MUST allow the user to buy the item.

API WG: Application Programming Interface Specifications

Specification of the (API) for communication from PFLH to wallet

• Allows different micropayment electronic wallets to coexist in a interoperable manner
• Addressing messages, communication and authentification issues

Messages between PFLH/BROWSER and WALLET: to buy a per-fee-link:

Messages between PFLH/BROWSER and WALLET : Special operations.

What's next

Current/Coming Drafts

• "Common Markup Micropayment Per-fee-links" - going to  "Last Call" to Proposed Rec ....
• Per Fee Link Handler (PFLH) Specification - about to be public released
• Application Programming Interface (API) Specification - on going work.

Working Groups issues

• Should review the current charter to extend milestones ?
• Is the current amount of participants enough for Proposed Rec ?

References

• Electronic Commerce Activity
• Micropayments Overview
• Micropayments Markup Working Group Page  [W3C Member restricted]
• Micropayments API Working Group Page [W3C Member restricted]
• Resource Description Framework (RDF) Model and Syntax Specification W3C Recommendation
  

Micropayment Systems :

Micro Payments from IBM,  Millicent from Compaq/Digital,  OpenMarket,  Clickshare,  CyberCent, Kleline
GC-Tech,  E-Money,  Internet Dollar, NetBill,  NetCheque, Mondex, PayWord and MicroMint, Pay2See, etc.