E-commerce Regulations

As freelance print and web designer.... I have been approached about setting up an e-commerce system for a client of mine. Being fairly new to e-commerce and online payment processing. I would like to obtain a set of Regulations web developers should adhere to when developing e-commerce sites.

The client has inquired about having on-line purchases containing credit card information be sent securely (using SSL) and directly to his inbox (mail). That information would then be entered into the retailers terminal for processing the sale.

I have spoken with various developers and retailers about using such a method for e-commerce and have received mixed advice. One person says it is no different than a person ordering by phone and another person says all online orders must be sent through a credit card processor.

Since I wish to protect my client from any misguided information ending in legal reprocussions. I am looking for an outline of regulations a retailer must follow before engaging in e-commerce.

Hello,

I have found from experience, working with various payment gateways system integrations, that most online merchant systems, IE Authorizenet, 2Checkout, Versigin, PayPal,..etc. provide very extensive online documentation on their respective web sites. I think you'll find the information your looking for.
A good rule of thumb, when dealing with online payment information, that all payment info should be transmitted via the SSL protocol, so all data is encrypted while being transferred. DO NOT email payment information,like credit card numbers to customers and/or merchants. Don't store any credit card information on your server unless you can securely encrypted the data prior too storing it, if you need to store payment information.

If your working with a particular payment system gateway, I think you'll find alot more info about handling customer payment information. We've been working with payment gateways systems integration for about 5yrs now, and found that good common sense goes along way also. And most payment processing system have very strict requirements for transmitting payment to their gateway from your remote server.

hope this helps