Multi-agent technology and ontologies to support personalization in B2C E-Commerce

In this paper we present an XML-based multi-agent system, called Multi Agent System for Traders (MAST), that supports several Business-to-Customer e-Commerce activities, including advertisements and payments. MAST helps both customers and merchants in performing their tasks by using a personalized approach. MAST’s e-payment model avoids exchanging sensitive information, reinforcing trust between merchants and customers. A complete prototype of MAST has been implemented under the JADE framework, and it has been exploited for realizing some experiments, in order to evaluate its performances.