TECHNOLOGY & TELECOMMUNICATIONS

Visa-MasterCard On-Line Venture Announced: As expected, the two leading issuers of plastic formally announced that they’ve joined forces to devise technical standards that will make credit card purchases over the Internet safe from cyber-thieves. That should help remove one of the biggest obstacles to the growth of electronic commerce: lack of security. Software that will enable a consumer to go Internet shopping via home computer should be available early next year, executives said. Visa and MasterCard say people want to buy things on the Internet using plastic. The companies intend to create a common system for shielding credit card numbers and other sensitive data in hard-to-decipher codes. People shopping via computer would transmit the codes, not the credit card numbers.