Short for
Electronic Commerce Modeling Language. ECML is a universal format for online commerce Web sites that contains customer information that is used for purchases made online, formatted through the use of
XML tags. It is a standard way of transferring billing, shipping and payment information to merchant sites regardless of what site the customer is purchasing from. If order forms are standardized, the customer's information can be imported directly into the form from a
digital wallet with the click of one button. This saves the customer from repeatedly filling out the same information on multiple order forms on multiple sites. ECML can be used in conjunction with
SSL and
SET.
The founding members of the ECML Alliance are America Online, American Express, Brodia, Compaq, CyberCash, Discover, FSTC, IBM, MasterCard, Microsoft, Novell, SETCo, Sun Microsystems, Trintech and Visa U.S.A.
