Nat Borenstein is speaking nearby on Monday. OPEN PROTOCOLS FOR INFORMATION COMMERCE Nathaniel Borenstein, Chief Scientist First Virtual Holdings Inc. Traditional one-way payment mechanisms, such as cash, credit cards, and digital cash, presuppose the necessity of payment validation in advance of the completion of a transaction. In contrast, a "closed loop" protocol that verifies both payment information and customer satisfaction permits a far simpler payment engine in an open Internet environment, and is well-suited to a broad sub-class of Internet commerce applications. In this talk, I will present the underlying philosophy, design rationale, and specification overview for a recently-developed set of open protocols for information commerce. Send me questions :-)