RFC 2706
ECML v1: Field Names for E-Commerce
RFC 2706: ECML v1: Field Names for E-Commerce 🎀
Okay bestie, first the paperwork 📋✨ This is RFC 2706, ECML v1: Field Names for E-Commerce, from the Network Working Group. The authors are D. Eastlake at IBM and T. Goldstein at Brodia. It's in the Informational category and dated October 1999. The title block doesn't list anything it obsoletes or updates, so no drama there 🙈
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.
⚠️ Heads up: if you're building on this for non-US or non-English stores, this is the part to read twice 😭
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 🧚
Acknowledgements 🫶
The following persons, in alphabetic order, contributed substantially to the material herein:
- George Burne, Trintech
- Joe Coco, Microsoft
- Kevin Weller, Visa
Thank you, legends 👑
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......................................131. Introduction ✨
1.1 Background 🛒
Okay so today, loads of merchants are doing great business on the Internet using HTML-based forms. The data formats in these forms vary a LOT from one merchant to another 😩 End-users find that diversity confusing, and filling these forms in by hand is tedious. The result? Reportedly around two thirds of merchant forms get abandoned during the fill-in process. Yikes 💀
Electronic wallets can help with this. A digital wallet is an application or service that helps consumers with online transactions by letting them store billing, shipping, payment, and preference information, then using that info to automatically complete merchant interactions. It's giving streamlined checkout, and it cuts down on the need for a consumer to fill in a merchant's form every single time 🫶 Digital wallets that fill in forms have been successfully built into browsers, as helper applications to browsers, as stand-alone applications, as browser plug-ins, and as server-based applications. But the wallet glow-up has been held back by the lack of standards 😤
ECML (Electronic Commerce Modeling Language, www.ecml.org) Version 1 gives web merchants a set of simple guidelines so that electronic wallets from multiple vendors can fill in their web forms. The end result? More consumers find shopping on the web easy and compelling 🌈
The set of fields in this document was developed by the Wallet/Merchant Standards Alliance (www.ecml.org), which now includes the following, in alphabetic order:
- 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:
<http://www.w3.org/TR/WD-P3P/basedata.html>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]. Those are important standards 🔥 They provide things like non-repudiatable transactions, automatable payment scheme selection, and smart card support.
ECML may be used with any payment mechanism. It simply lets a merchant publish consistent simple web forms 💅
Multiple wallets and multiple merchants plan to interoperably support ECML. It's an open standard, and ECML is designed to be simple 🦋
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 they already use to support their customers. Use of ECML requires no license 🎀
1.3 Areas Deferred to Future Versions 🔮
Okay, a bunch of stuff got pushed to later 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." Hidden or other special fields were kept to a minimum. 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, and some less by omitting fields. Some merchants may ask for what they want in one HTML form on one web page, while others may ask for parts of the information at different times on different pages. For example, it's super common to ask for "ship to" info earlier, so shipping cost can be computed, before the payment method info 📦 Some merchants may require that all the information they request be provided, while others make much of the information optional, and so on.
There is no way with version 1 of ECML to indicate which 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 a field it requires isn't completed, just as it may if a field is completed in a manner it considers erroneous 😬
🎀 Part 1 ends here, bestie. Part 2 picks up at section 2.2 with the fill-in triggers and the Ecom_ fields 🦋✨
3. Field Definitions 🎀
okay so bestie, this section is the actual shopping list 🛍️ every field the consumer can fill in, plus the minimum size you should allow for typing it in. The fields are organised in a family tree, and you can spot the family members by the underscores ("_") in their names 🌳 Ecom_ShipTo is the parent, and everything under it is its kids. That's super useful, because the consumer-to-merchant transfer mechanism can ask for a whole family at once, like Ecom_Payment_Card_ExpDate for all the date bits, or Ecom_ShipTo for all the shipping bits the consumer is happy to share 💕 How you pack and unpack those groups depends on which data transfer protocol you're using 📦
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. Merchant software should, in most cases, be prepared to receive a longer or shorter value 🙃 For example, a state/province name or phone number somewhere in the world can be longer than the "Min" listed, so you obviously have to let people type longer stuff 🌍 In a few cases there's a maximum size that actually makes sense, and when that happens it's written up in a Note for that 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
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 NotesIMPORTANT 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 🙃 Merchants 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 this is documented in a Note for the field 📝
4. End Notes 📚
These are the footnotes for the table above, bestie, so flip back up whenever you see a number in brackets ✨
(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. Order matters here, babe 🗂️
(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 <http://www.din.de/gremien/nas/nabd/iso3166ma/codlstp1.html> for country names. 🗺️
(8) 10 digits are the minimum for numbers local to the North American Numbering Plan (<http://www.nanpa.com>: 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. 💳
(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 🔒
bestie, this one is serious, so listen up 🫶 The information these fields carry is sensitive, so it should be protected whenever it's sent over the public Internet or any other channel where someone could observe it 👀 This document doesn't specify how to do that protection. Still, channel encryption such as SSL/TLS [RFC 2246] or IPSec [RFC 2411] would be appropriate in many cases 🛡️
User control over release of such information is needed to protect the user's privacy. Nobody should be leaking your info without you saying so 🙅♀️💜
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. So if you spot that end-of-transaction flag, the auto-fill has to stop until someone authorises it again 🛑✋
References 📖
ISO 3166 - Codes for the representation of names of countries, <http://www.din.de/gremien/nas/nabd/iso3166ma>
ISO 7812 - Identification card - Identification of issuers - Part 1: Numbering system
HTTP4.0 - HTML 4.0 Specification, <http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40>
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, <http://www.setco.org/set_specifications.html>
XML - Extensible Markup Language (XML) 1.0, <http://www.w3.org/TR/1998/REC-xml-19980210>, T. Bray, J. Paoli, C. M. Sperberg-McQueen
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.comFull Copyright Statement 💖
Copyright (C) The Internet Society (1999). All Rights Reserved. 🌸
okay so this one is the legal bit, but it's still important, bestie 📜. You're allowed to copy this document and hand it out to people, and you can translate it too. You can also write derivative works that comment on or explain it, or help people implement it, and you can prepare, copy, publish, and distribute those as much as you want, in whole or in part, with no restrictions of any kind. The one condition is that the copyright notice and this paragraph have to be included on every copy and every derivative work. ✨
BUT (and this is the main thing 🫶) the document itself may not be modified in any way. You can't remove the copyright notice or the references to the Internet Society or other Internet organizations. The only exceptions are: when you're needed for developing Internet standards, in which case the copyright procedures from the Internet Standards process must be followed, or when you're translating it into languages other than English. 🦋
The permissions above are perpetual, which means they will not be revoked by the Internet Society or its successors or assigns. Forever and ever, periodt 💅.
This document and the information in it are provided on an "AS IS" basis, and THE INTERNET SOCIETY AND THE INTERNET ENGINEERING TASK FORCE DISCLAIMS ALL WARRANTIES, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO ANY WARRANTY THAT THE USE OF THE INFORMATION HEREIN WILL NOT INFRINGE ANY RIGHTS OR ANY IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY OR FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. So no promises were made, lowkey 🙈.
Acknowledgement 🎀
Funding for the RFC Editor function is currently provided by the Internet Society. 🌈 The people who keep this whole system running deserve all the flowers 🌷✨
📦 where this page comes from
- ietf: rfc2706 1999-10
- 💖 girlified by claude-haiku-5-5 on : a language model's rewrite of the original, under its terms