CASE STUDY ASSIGNMENT 1, 3 AND 5

By

Oluwajana Dokun Iwalewa

Student number: 20101144

E-commerce (MIS 537)

Asst. prof. Dr. Ahmet Aadalier

 Case study question 1
Q1: identify the elements of the kazaa case study that are indicative of the E-commerce I and E-
commerce II eras respectively. How does kazaa make money?

A1: In E-commerce I era technology was driven and kazaa used a more contemporary P2P technology
that does not require a central index but a software program called fast track.

In E- commerce II era business, earnings and profits are their key goal has you can see from the case
study that fast tracking is an example of advertising network that makes its money not from selling
music but from selling advertisers access to its many users.

In E- commerce II era strategic follower strength ; complimentary asset are required in case of kazaa it
made use of first mover failures to strategize for instance napster used central index of title but kazaa
had to rely on software program.

In E- commerce II era, there is an imperfect market, brands and network effects. kazaa had a lot of
competitors, new brands, and a network effects in the market space.

Q1b: how does kazaa make money?

A1b: (1) Kazaa makes money through loads fast-track with so called “spyware” and “adware” program
which in turn go out on the internet and request pop-on advertisement and e-mail from vendors who
pays for the service.

(2) Fast track is an advertising market used for making money from selling an advertisers access to the
users.

Q2: Into which category or categories of e-commerce does kazaa fall?

A2: peer to peer

Q3: What social issues does kazaa’s business raise? Is the record justified in attempting to shut it down?

A3: kazaa issue claiming that file swapping service does not need copyright fee to owners’ copyrighted
materials but kazaa claim that they are not responsible for the millions of people using the software and
if copyright owners are damaged they should sue individual violators.

A3b: Label industry is justified because existing books, music , movies and books industries of the
world are founded on legal structure to protect their property why kazaa file swapping services proof
threat to their financial futures is.

Q4: what are the technological and legal advantages of kazaa’s peer to peer technology?
A4: It attracts audiences to music by using fast tracking file swapping software and legal advantage is
that file swapping service does not need copyright fee to owners’ copyrighted materials.

Q5: follow up on events at subsequent to june 2003. Is kazaa still in business? What is the outcome of
legal action against kazaa?

A5: Yes, kazaa is still in business they went dark. The software was transferred to Blastoise and giving to
individuals in Estonia for intellectual properties pirates. Later, sold to Australian company which could
not mention the officers involved under code of secrecy.

A5b: the outcome of the legal action brings about many industries such as Music net, AOL, Pressplay
started charging fees for varieties of music of high quality and customers are trooping in for high quality
and trustworthy music is available

CASE STUDY QUESTION 3

Q1: Why does Akamia need to geographically disperse its servers to deliver its customers’ Web
content?

A1: It is because akamia has a product called Edgesuite that allows corporations to maximize their web
performance and minimize cost while distributing their content on the web. It allows consumers to
move their content closer to end users.

Q2: If I wanted to deliver software content over the web, would you sign up for Akamia’s service? Why
or why not?

A2: yes, I will use Akamia service because

(1) It is reliable that is offering a products with intelligence generated by internet most accurate and
comprehensible knowledge based on internet activity.

(2)Akamia has a number of their business based on internet savvy such as advertising based on location,
zip code, content security, disaster discovery, storage, traffic management and streaming services.

Why not?

(1)Many ISPs and other web hosting services offer the capability of geographically dispersed web servers
so I can decide to go for any of the other web hosting services.
(2) Looking at their portfolio, in 2002, it had a net loss of $204 million and has not been profitable and its
stock started out just over $65, but sunk to under $3 in 2003.

Q3: what advantages does an advertiser derive from using Akamia‘s EgdeScape service? What kinds of
products might from this of service?

(1)EdgeScape provides enterprise with intelligence generated by internet most accurate and
comprehensible knowledge based on internet activity.

(2) It provided massive server deployment and relationships with other networks throughout the world.

(3) It provides a highly accurate knowledgebase with worldwide coverage.

A3b: M- commerce application, disturbed storage of data, distance learning, internet telephony

Q4: If I were an investor, what factors would you encourage you to invest on in Akamia? What factors
would discourage you?

A4: I will invest on Edgesuite and Edgescape because the products attract customer trying to
communicate with akamia database to retrieve the latest information.

A4b: In 2002, it had a net loss of $204 million and has not been profitable and its stock started out just
over $65, but sunk to under $3 in 2003.

CASE STUDY QUESTION 5

Q1: Make a list of 5 documents that you have been asked to sign or receive as part of a
transaction. Which of these documents would you feel secure about executing online with a
digital certificate system in place?

A1:
(1) User accesses to the website

(2) Account name

(3) Password

(4) Social security name

(5) Name and password automatically checked in against internal authentication system.
A1b: Password

Q2: What are the social implications of a single firm such as VerSign dominating the market for digital
certificates? Who oversees Verisgn? Is there a need for legislation to regulate the digital certificates
industry, and if so what kind of regulation do you think might be appropriate?

A2a: (1) the social implication of VeriSign dominating the market is the market turned monopolized
rather companies to start to build their own security system they are running to VeriSign for their entire
encryption operation.

(2) E-commerce merchants would force their customers to have certificate as condition of transaction
but the public might eventually use it and it will take longer time to learn it.

A2b: Stratton Sclavos

A2c: yes

A2d: Electronic Communication Privacy Act (1986)

A2e: imposes fine and imprisonment for individuals who access, intercept, or disclose the private e-
mail communications of others.

Q3: What additional security technologies would be useful to ensure the authenticity of the actual
operator of a client computer?

A3: (1) firewall

(2) Anti virus

(3) Proxies