Agent Mediated Electronic Commerce: The European AgentLink Perspective: 1991 (Lecture Notes in Artificial Intelligence)

It is now no longer necessary to argue the importance of agent technology. Be- des numerous conferences and workshops on speci c aspects of agent technology there are also many companies that are exploring its exploitation possibilities. In the light of these developments and in order to foster the transfer of agent technology from research labs to business, the EU has funded a \network of exc- lence" devoted to agent technology. This network of excellence, called AgentLink (http://www. agentlink. org/), aims at bringing together research groups from d- ferent countries and industrial developers. The ultimate goal is to create synergy among the di erent projects and groups to improve the competence of European industry and the excellence of academia. In order to achieve this goal, Agent- Link organises educational activities (summer schools), builds agent-related - terature repositories, and facilitates collaboration between member nodes. One of the main activities related to the last point are the regular meetings of \S- cial Interest Groups" (SIGs). At this moment six SIGs are functioning, focusing on topics ranging from agent based social simulation to intelligent agents for telecommunications applications and telematics. The current book combines two results from the activities of the SIG on \Agent Mediated Electronic Commerce". This SIG gathers the main research groups and industrial partners interested in the use of agent technology in el- tronic commerce. First and foremost the book contains a roadmap of research and current technological developments in the area of agent-mediated electronic commerce.

This book documents the efforts undertaken by the EG AgentLink Special Interest Group on Agent Mediated Electronic Commerce, SIG AMEC.
First and foremost, the book presents a roadmap of research and current technological development in the area of agent mediated electronic commerce. A particularly interesting part of this roadmap is the joint perspective on future developments.
The book also contains a number of papers that fill in parts of this roadmap in a European context. Some of the papers present significant current R&D results while other papers indicate some clear directions for future research. The book is structured in topical sections on negotiation, markets, user preferences, and security.