Re: Secure payments again

At 08:57 PM 11/23/99 -0500, Rich Bowen wrote:

>Is there a tutorial for idiots somewhere? I can't afford the monthly
>charge that some of these places are looking for, and I don't want a
>place to host a whole web site - I just want people to be able to give
>me their money.

Are you looking for real time authorization? 

If you're willing to consider *not* doing real-time, it's actually quite
easy -- no harder than a traditional form processing, and your current host
can give you the instructions for placing the order pages behind the secure
server (and the resulting data files). The key there is keeping them on the
secure server, or running a process that will encrypt them before mailing.
If you keep them on the server, there are issues of "sales draft retention"
that you'd need to create a process for, keeping the data for at least 3
years (though of course, not necessarily on the server for that long. I'd
not keep that data on the server any longer than is actually necessary on a
traditional ISP account, even with ssl). 

If you do want real-time, it's not cheap, unless your provider also has
cybercash availability for you (some do). 

Ann
---

Author of:  Effective Web Design: Master the Essentials
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