System for managing online transaction of data that executes escrow service

Abstract

To prevent a purchaser from failing to pay for data to a supplier, the data being transmitted from the supplier to the purchaser in accordance with a notification from a mediator, in a system that executes online transactions of data using a network.SOLUTION: In a system 1 that manages online transaction of data through a network 2, when a purchaser device 3 executes transmitting a notification of a data purchase request to a mediator device 5 and executes processing to remit deposit from a purchaser to an owner of the mediator device, the mediator device transfers, to a supplier device 4, the notification of the data purchase request received from the purchased device. When the purchase device transmits, to the mediator device, a transaction completion notification indicating that reception of the requested data from the supplier device and payment for the data to an owner of the supplier device are completed, the mediator device executes processing to return at least part of the deposit to an owner of the purchaser device.SELECTED DRAWING: Figure 2

Description

[Technical Field]

[0001] The present invention relates to an online data trading service using a network, and more particularly to a system that executes an escrow service that manages the smooth execution of online data trading. [Background technology]

[0002] With the development of network technology, various technologies related to systems for online trading of data such as digital content and other electromagnetic content have been proposed. For example, Patent Document 1 proposes a system configured to mediate (intervene) through an arbitration server communications between a client device configured to play content titles and a trading server that receives requests from the client device, identifies the client device's user account, and allocates content to the user account. In this system, the trading server is proposed to perform an escrow service by receiving seller content and buyer payments, transferring the payments to the seller's account, and allocating the content to the buyer. Patent Document 2 proposes a configuration for revitalizing electronic commerce in an electronic commerce system in which, when a user completes a certain transaction, points corresponding to that transaction are awarded to that user. The higher the user's total points, the lower the fees paid by that user. [Prior art documents] [Patent documents]

[0003] [Patent Document 1] Patent Publication No. 2011-108238 [Patent Document 2] Patent Publication No. 2011-150406 Summary of the Invention [Problem to be solved by the invention]

[0004] In online transactions conducted over a network system, when electromagnetically recorded data is the subject of a transaction, typically, a data transaction intermediary (enabler) displays the titles of data available from various data providers. When a data consumer requests data from the intermediary, the intermediary notifies the provider of the desired data (processing on the control plane). The provider then transmits the data to the buyer (processing on the data plane), and the buyer remits payment for the data to the data provider. In such online data transaction structures, there may be cases where the data is transmitted from the provider to the buyer in accordance with the intermediary's notification, but the buyer does not pay the provider (i.e., the buyer simply steals the data). The possibility of such an occurrence could make data providers reluctant to conduct online transactions through that intermediary, leading to a stagnation in online transactions.

[0005] In view of the above circumstances, the main object of the present invention is to provide a configuration for preventing a situation in which, in a system for executing online data transactions using a network, data is transmitted from a supplier to a purchaser in accordance with a notification from an intermediary, but payment of the price from the purchaser to the supplier is not made. [Means for solving the problem]

[0006] According to the present invention, the above problem is solved by a system for managing online transactions of data over a network, comprising: a purchaser device, a supplier device, and an intermediary device that can communicate with each other via the network; The purchaser device is provided with a data purchase request notification sending means for sending a request to purchase data available from the supplier device to the intermediary device, a purchaser deposit remittance means for executing a process for remitting a purchaser deposit from the owner of the purchaser device to the owner of the intermediary device, and a transaction completion notification sending means for sending a transaction completion notification to the intermediary device to notify that the receipt of the purchase request data from the supplier device and the payment of the price of the purchase request data from the owner of the purchaser device to the owner of the supplier device have been completed, the intermediary device is provided with a data purchase request notification transfer means for transferring the notification of the purchaser's desire to purchase the data from the purchaser's device to the supplier's device in response to establishment of predetermined conditions including receipt of a notification of the purchaser's desire to purchase the data available from the supplier's device and completion of a remittance process of the purchaser's deposit from the owner of the purchaser's device to the owner of the intermediary device, and a deposit refund means for executing a process of refunding at least a portion of the purchaser's deposit to the owner of the purchaser's device upon receipt of the transaction completion notification from the purchaser's device, The supplier device is provided with a data purchase request notification receiving means for receiving from the intermediary device a notification of the purchaser device's desire to purchase data that can be supplied by the supplier device, and the system is configured so that the owner of the supplier device can transmit the data that the purchaser device desires to purchase to the owner of the purchaser device by referring to the notification of the desire to purchase the data. This is achieved by:

[0007] In the above, the "network" may refer to any type of communication network available for online transactions, such as the Internet. In this invention, "data" refers to electromagnetically recorded signals carrying information transmitted and received over a network, including electromagnetic content. The "buyer device," "supplier device," and "intermediary device" may each be computer devices (terminals or servers) capable of communicating with each other over a network. Typically, the owner of the buyer device is the purchaser of data, the owner of the supplier device is the supplier of data, and the owner of the intermediary device is the intermediary who mediates online transactions. A "buyer deposit" refers to money or any asset of equivalent value. The "process of transferring the buyer deposit from the owner of the buyer device to the owner of the intermediary device" refers to the process of transferring the buyer deposit, which is a monetary asset, from the account or asset storage location of the owner of the buyer device to the account or asset storage location of the owner of the intermediary device. This process may also involve deferred payment by credit card, etc. Similarly, the "process of refunding at least a portion of the purchaser's deposit to the owner of the purchaser's device upon receiving the transaction completion notification from the purchaser's device" refers to a process of transferring at least a portion of the purchaser's deposit from the account or asset storage location of the owner of the intermediary device to the account or asset storage location of the owner of the purchaser's device, and may be a deferred payment by credit card or the like. Furthermore, the "payment of the price of the data desired to be purchased from the owner of the purchaser's device to the owner of the supplier's device" refers to a process of transferring the price of the data transferred to the purchaser's owner from the account or asset storage location of the owner of the purchaser's device to the account or asset storage location of the owner of the supplier's device, and may be a deferred payment by credit card or the like. Note that the processing in the system of the present invention is performed on a control plane that manages online data transactions over a network. The sending and receiving of transaction data and data payment processing, etc., performed on a data plane may be performed by a separate system that executes the online transaction itself (however, they may be configured integrally with the system of the present invention, and such cases also fall within the scope of the present invention).

[0008] The system of the present invention described above is for online data sales transactions over a network, i.e., online sales transactions in which data is transferred from a supplier to a buyer. First, the buyer is required to send a notice to an intermediary device indicating his / her desire to purchase data offered for sale by the supplier (data available from the supplier device) and to remit a buyer's deposit to the intermediary device in advance via a buyer's deposit remittance means. The intermediary then receives the notice of the buyer's desire to purchase the data available from the supplier device, and after confirming the completion of the buyer's deposit remittance from the buyer device and the satisfaction of other appropriate predetermined conditions, forwards the notice of the buyer's desire to purchase the data from the supplier device to the supplier device. Upon receiving this notice of the desire to purchase the data, the supplier transmits the data to the buyer, and the buyer pays the supplier for the data. Once this transaction is completed, a transaction completion notice is sent from the buyer device to the intermediary device. The intermediary device then executes a process in which at least a portion of the buyer's deposit is refunded from the intermediary to the buyer. According to this configuration, if the purchaser receives the data but does not pay for the data and the sales transaction is not completed, the purchaser will not be able to receive a refund of the purchaser deposit, so it is expected that a situation where the purchaser simply steals data, that is, the data is sent from the supplier to the purchaser but the purchaser does not pay the price to the supplier, will be prevented.

[0009] The system configuration of the present invention may further be configured such that, at the time of a transaction, a deposit (supplier deposit) is handed over from the supplier side to the intermediary side, and after the transaction is completed, at least a portion of the supplier deposit is returned from the intermediary side to the supplier side. Specifically, the system may further include a supplier deposit remittance means for executing a process of remitting the supplier deposit from the owner of the supplier device to the owner of the intermediary device, the predetermined conditions for the data purchase desire notice transfer means of the intermediary device to transfer the data purchase desire notice from the buyer device to the supplier device include completion of the remittance process of the supplier deposit from the owner of the supplier device to the owner of the intermediary device, and the deposit refund means of the intermediary device, upon receiving the transaction completion notice from the buyer device, further executes a process of refunding at least a portion of the supplier deposit to the owner of the supplier device. With this configuration, the supplier deposit will not be refunded to the supplier at all unless the data is actually sent from the supplier to the purchaser and the sales transaction is completed, which is expected to prevent a situation where the purchaser has paid the supplier for the data they wish to purchase, but the supplier does not send the data to the purchaser (the supplier being reluctant to release the data).

[0010] When the buyer's deposit or supplier's deposit delivered to the intermediary of the present invention is returned to the buyer or supplier, respectively, a commission to the intermediary may be deducted from the deposit. That is, in the system of the present invention, the deposit refund means in the intermediary device may be configured to execute a process of refunding the amount remaining after deducting the commission of the owner of the intermediary device from the buyer's deposit (or the supplier deposit) to the owner of the buyer's device (or the supplier device). This provides the intermediary with the advantage of obtaining monetary assets, providing an incentive to perform the intermediary services described above.

[0011] Furthermore, in a configuration in which a portion of the buyer's or supplier's deposit serves as the intermediary's fee, the higher the buyer's or supplier's transactional trustworthiness, the lower the intermediary's fee may be set. That is, in the system of the present invention, the intermediary device may further include a buyer's (or supplier's) credit score determination means for determining and recording a credit score, which is an index representing the buyer's (or supplier's) transactional trustworthiness, and the deposit refund means of the intermediary device may be configured to determine the intermediary device's owner's fee to be deducted from the buyer's (or supplier's) deposit based on the credit score. This configuration provides an incentive for buyers or suppliers to improve their transactional trustworthiness in order to reduce fees, which is expected to prevent buyers from stealing data or suppliers from withholding data. The credit score, which is an index representing transactional trustworthiness, may be determined in any manner. For example, the credit score may be the ratio of completed transactions to the number of transactions with each purchaser or supplier, or a value that takes this into account.

[0012] In the above-described data purchase and sale transaction, it is preferable to be able to confirm that the data transmitted from the supplier has been received by the buyer in an authentic state. Therefore, the supplier and buyer may each calculate a hash value of the data, and the buyer may compare the calculated hash values to confirm the authenticity of the transmitted and received data. Specifically, in the above-described system of the present invention, the supplier device may further include a means for calculating a hash value of the data desired to be purchased and a means for transmitting the hash value to the buyer, and the buyer device may further include a means for calculating a hash value of the data received from the supplier device. The transaction completion notification transmitting means of the buyer device may transmit the transaction completion notification to the intermediary device only when the hash value calculated by the buyer device matches the hash value calculated from the data received from the buyer. This allows the transaction to be determined to have been completed successfully only when the data has been transmitted from the supplier to the buyer in an authentic state, providing an incentive for transmitting and receiving data in an authentic state. Even if the hash values of the data calculated by the supplier and the purchaser match, it is difficult to determine whether the data the purchaser wishes to purchase has been sent from the supplier. Therefore, in the system of the present invention, in addition to immediately inspecting the data using the hash value, the content of the data received by the purchaser is confirmed, and if the data received by the purchaser differs from the data desired to be purchased, the full amount of the purchaser's deposit may be refunded to the purchaser. [Effects of the Invention]

[0013] Thus, according to the above-described system configuration, the intermediary acts as an "escrow service" in online data transactions, receiving a deposit from the purchaser. The purchaser cannot purchase the data without making a deposit, and the deposit is not refunded until the purchaser has completed payment for the data. In other words, the present invention provides the purchaser with an incentive to complete payment for the data by receiving a refund of the deposit, thereby preventing a situation in which the supplier transmits data to the purchaser in accordance with notification from the intermediary, but the purchaser does not pay the supplier. The system configuration of the present invention is expected to improve the security of online data transactions, thereby further increasing the use of online data transactions.

[0014] Other objects and advantages of the present invention will become apparent from the following description of preferred embodiments of the invention. [Brief explanation of the drawings]

[0015] [Figure 1] FIG. 1 is a schematic diagram of a network structure in which online data buying and selling transactions are carried out, to which a system according to this embodiment is applied. [Figure 2] FIG. 2 is a block diagram showing the configuration of a system for managing online data buying and selling transactions according to this embodiment. [Explanation of symbols]

[0016] 1...online trading system, 2...communication network, 3...purchaser device, 4...supplier device, 5...intermediary device BEST MODE FOR CARRYING OUT THE INVENTION

[0017] The present invention will now be described in detail with reference to some preferred embodiments thereof with reference to the accompanying drawings, in which like reference numerals indicate like parts.

[0018] Overview of the online trading system The system of this embodiment can be simply described as a system that performs escrow services in online data transactions. Referring to FIG. 1, in system 1, where online data transactions are performed, multiple terminals or servers 3-5 are connected to the Internet or any other communication network 2 in a conventional manner so that they can communicate with each other. The terminals or servers 3-5 may be any computer device that can access a communication network in a conventional manner, such as a computer, tablet, or smartphone, and that executes the processes described below. Among the terminals or servers 3-5 connected to communication network 2, in an online data transaction, the device of the data purchaser is called the purchaser device 3, the device of the data supplier is called the supplier device 4, and the device of the intermediary that manages the online transaction and performs the escrow service is called the intermediary device 5. Each device connected to communication network 2 may function as the purchaser device 3 when purchasing data, as the supplier device 4 when supplying data, and as the intermediary device 5 when managing the transaction and performing the escrow service. Each component of each device described below is realized by the operation of a computer device in accordance with a program.

[0019] Although not shown, the intermediary device 5 may be configured as a server to execute a service that provides a list of data titles that can be supplied by multiple suppliers. Such a list of data is then viewed by those who wish to purchase data. When a person who wishes to purchase data on the list uses their own terminal or server as the buyer device 3 to send a notice of their desire to purchase the data to the intermediary device 5, a process according to this embodiment, which will be described in detail later, is executed to prevent purchasers from simply stealing data or suppliers from withholding data, and to provide incentives to stimulate online data buying and selling.

[0020] Configuration and operation of the management system for online data trading according to the present embodiment (a) Escrow services to prevent online data transactions from being stolen by buyers The system of this embodiment aims to facilitate online sales and purchase transactions of electromagnetically recorded data. It incorporates a mechanism for preventing a situation in which, in a sales transaction, a supplier transfers data to a buyer via network communication, but the buyer fails to pay the supplier for the data (i.e., data theft). Specifically, in this system, when a buyer attempts to purchase data from a supplier, an intermediary confirms the buyer's transfer of a monetary deposit to the intermediary, then communicates the buyer's desire to purchase the data to the supplier. Upon confirming the completion of the data transmission from the supplier to the buyer and the buyer's payment of the data fee to the supplier, the intermediary refunds at least a portion of the monetary deposit transferred by the buyer to the buyer. The monetary deposit may be money or any asset of equivalent value (the same applies below). The transfer and refund of the monetary deposit and the payment of the data fee may be deferred payment using a credit card or the like.

[0021] 2, a purchaser wishing to purchase data available from a certain supplier first transmits a notification of the purchase desire for the data from a data purchase desire notification transmitting unit 31 of the purchaser's own device 3 (purchaser device) to a data purchase desire notification receiving unit 51 of the intermediary device 5 (intermediary device), and executes a process of transferring an appropriately set amount as a monetary deposit Xcd from the purchaser's own account or monetary asset storage location (hereinafter referred to as "account, etc.") 3a to the intermediary's account, etc. 5a via a remittance instruction unit 32. When the receipt of the monetary deposit into the intermediary's account, etc. 5a is confirmed by a purchaser deposit receipt confirmation unit 52 of the intermediary device 5, in response thereto, a data purchase desire notification forwarding unit 53 transmits the data purchase desire notification received by the data purchase desire notification receiving unit 51 to a data purchase desire notification receiving unit 41 of the supplier device 4 (supplier device). Upon receiving this notification, the data transmission instruction unit 42 of the supplier device 4 instructs the transmission of data Z desired by the purchaser from the supplier's data storage unit 4m to the purchaser's data storage unit 3m, and when the purchaser's data storage unit 3m receives data Z, this fact is transmitted from the data reception confirmation unit 33 to the transaction completion notice transmission unit 35. Furthermore, when the purchaser remits the price Y for the data from his / her own account 3a to the supplier's account 4a, this fact is transmitted to the transaction completion notice transmission unit 35 via the data price remittance unit 34. Then, upon confirmation of receipt of the data from the supplier by the data reception confirmation unit 33 and confirmation of remittance of the price for the data to the supplier by the data price remittance unit 34, the transaction completion notice transmission unit 35 transmits a transaction completion notice to the transaction completion notice receiving unit 54 of the intermediary device 5. Then, upon receiving such notification of transaction completion, the deposit refund unit 55 of the intermediary device 5 executes a process of transferring at least a part of the deposit Xcr that it had received from the purchaser from its own account 5a to the purchaser's account 3a. The refund confirmation unit 36 may confirm that at least a part of the deposit Xcr has been refunded to the account 3a.

[0022] According to the above configuration, once the purchaser has completed payment for the data received from the supplier, the purchaser will receive a refund of the deposit from the intermediary. This provides the purchaser with an incentive to complete payment for the data, and is expected to prevent a situation in which the purchaser fails to pay the supplier for the data even after the supplier has transferred the data to the purchaser via communication over a network. To ensure that the purchaser pays for the data, the amount of the financial deposit to the intermediary is preferably set higher than the price of the data. Furthermore, to provide the intermediary with an incentive to provide an escrow service for deposits, the refund of the deposit from the intermediary to the purchaser may be the amount transferred by the purchaser minus an appropriate intermediary fee.

[0023] (b) Escrow services to prevent data withholding by suppliers in online data transactions In order to facilitate smoother online data transactions, the system of this embodiment may be configured to prevent a situation in which the supplier does not transfer the data to the buyer through communication via the network even after the buyer has paid the supplier for the data (reluctance to release the data). Specifically, the system of this embodiment may be configured so that the supplier also deposits the above-mentioned financial deposit with the intermediary, i.e., when a buyer attempts to purchase data from a supplier, the intermediary confirms that the supplier has remitted the financial deposit to the intermediary, then communicates the buyer's desire to purchase the data to the supplier, and upon confirming the completion of the transmission of the data from the supplier to the buyer and the payment of the data from the buyer to the supplier, refunds at least a portion of the financial deposit deposited with the supplier.

[0024] More specifically, referring again to FIG. 2, in a data transaction, the supplier also executes a process of transferring an appropriately set amount as a monetary deposit Xpd from its own account 4a to the intermediary's account 5a through the remittance instruction unit 43, and the data purchase request notification transfer unit 53 of the intermediary device 5 confirms the deposit of the monetary deposit from the supplier at the supplier deposit deposit confirmation unit 56, along with the deposit of the monetary deposit to the intermediary's account 5a at the purchaser deposit confirmation unit 52, and then transmits the data purchase request notification received at the data purchase request notification receiving unit 51 to the data purchase request notification receiving unit 41 of the supplier device 4. Upon receiving this notification, as described above, the data transmission instruction unit 42 instructs the supplier's data storage unit 4m to transmit the data Z that the purchaser wishes to purchase from the purchaser's data storage unit 3m, and the purchaser transfers the payment Y for the data from his / her own account 3a to the supplier's account 4a, completing the sales transaction. When the transaction completion notification sending unit 35 sends a transaction completion notification to the transaction completion notification receiving unit 54 of the intermediary device 5, the deposit refund unit 55 of the intermediary device 5 then executes processing to transfer at least a portion Xpr of the deposit held by the supplier from its own account 5a to the supplier's account 4a. The refund confirmation unit 44 may confirm that at least a portion Xpr of the deposit has been refunded to the account 4a.

[0025] According to the above configuration, just as in the case of the purchaser, the supplier can receive a refund of the deposit from the intermediary once the supplier has completed transmitting the data to the purchaser. This provides the supplier with an incentive to complete the transmission of the data, and is expected to prevent a situation in which the supplier does not transfer the data to the purchaser via communication over the network, even though the purchaser has paid the supplier for the data. It is preferable that the amount of the monetary deposit to the intermediary be set higher than the value of the data, so that the supplier is more reliably able to transmit the data. Furthermore, to provide the intermediary with an incentive to provide the escrow service for deposits, the refund of the deposit from the intermediary to the supplier may be the amount transferred by the supplier minus an appropriately set intermediary fee.

[0026] (c) Reduction of intermediary fees according to trading performance In order to promote smooth online data transactions, the system of the present embodiment may be configured so that the more a buyer and / or supplier successfully complete transactions, the lower the commission to the intermediary. Specifically, the intermediary may calculate a buyer credit score and / or a supplier credit score as indicators representing the degree of creditworthiness of each party in transactions as a buyer and / or a supplier, and the higher the credit score, the lower the amount of commission to be deducted from the monetary deposit returned to the buyer or supplier after the transaction is completed.

[0027] 2, the transaction completion notification receiving unit 54 of the intermediary device 5 may be configured to record the number of transactions executed and the number of transaction inspections (number of times the transaction was successfully completed) for each purchaser or supplier each time a transaction is executed, and the purchaser credit score determining unit 57 and the supplier credit score determining unit 58 may be configured to determine higher values for the purchaser credit score and the supplier credit score, respectively, the higher the percentage of inspections or the more inspections there are, and the deposit refund unit 55 may be configured to reduce the amount to be deducted from the refunded monetary deposit the higher the determined purchaser credit score or supplier credit score. The purchaser credit score and the supplier credit score may be determined using a map or the like (not shown) with the percentage of inspections or the number of inspections as a variable.

[0028] According to the above configuration, the higher the frequency and rate of transaction acceptance, the larger the monetary deposit amount returned to each purchaser or supplier, thereby providing each purchaser or supplier with an incentive to successfully complete the transaction, thereby promoting smooth online data transactions.

[0029] (d) Improving transaction security by verifying data authenticity The above-described online data transaction is a low-latency transaction in which data is transmitted instantly via a machine. Data is transmitted without any human judgment. In this case, errors may occur during the data transmission process, whether at the time of transmission by the supplier, during data communication, or at the time of reception by the buyer. If such an error occurs and the supplier does not successfully transmit the data desired by the buyer, the transaction may be mistakenly determined to be complete, thereby compromising the security of the transaction. Therefore, in order to easily verify the authenticity of the data transmitted from the supplier to the buyer, the system of this embodiment may be configured such that the supplier transmits a hash value calculated from the data to the buyer along with the data to be transmitted. The buyer can then verify the authenticity of the data by comparing the hash value calculated from the received data with the hash value transmitted by the supplier. Only upon successful verification, the system notifies the intermediary of the completion of the transaction.

[0030] More specifically, referring again to FIG. 2 , first, in the supplier device 4, the hash value calculation unit 45 calculates a hash value of the data to be transmitted, and the hash value is transmitted from the hash value transmission unit 46 to the hash value comparison unit 38 in the purchaser device 3 (the hash value may be transmitted via the intermediary device 5). Meanwhile, in the purchaser device 3, the hash value calculation unit 37 calculates a hash value of the received data, and the hash value is passed to the hash value comparison unit 38. The hash value comparison unit 38 determines whether the hash value calculated on the purchaser side matches the hash value calculated on the supplier side. The transaction completion notice transmission unit 35 may be configured to transmit a transaction completion notice to the transaction completion notice reception unit 54 in the intermediary device 5 when it is confirmed that the data reception confirmation unit 33 has received the data from the supplier and the data payment remittance unit 34 has remitted the payment for the data to the supplier, as well as that the hash values match. With this configuration, the authenticity of the data can be confirmed, which provides an incentive to send and receive data in an authentic state, and is expected to increase the reliability of the system's security and promote the use of online transactions. Furthermore, with this configuration, the purchaser also calculates the hash value, making it possible to prevent repudiation of the supplier.

[0031] In the above configuration, if the hash value calculated by the purchaser does not match the hash value calculated by the supplier, the purchaser may be able to request the intermediary or supplier to resend the data, cancel the transaction, reduce the fee, etc. In addition to confirming the authenticity of the data using the hash value, if the purchaser examines the content of the transmitted data and determines that the transmitted data is not the data he or she desired to purchase, the purchaser may be able to request a full refund of the financial deposit from the intermediary and a refund of the price of the data from the supplier.

[0032] Thus, in the above embodiment, when an online data purchase transaction is made, a financial deposit is transferred from the purchaser or supplier to the intermediary, and when the transaction is successfully completed, the financial deposit is returned from the intermediary to the purchaser or supplier by introducing a configuration into the management system. This provides an incentive for the purchaser or supplier to successfully complete the online data purchase transaction, which is expected to prevent data theft or withholding of data, and enable online data transactions to be carried out smoothly.

[0033] The above description has been made in relation to the embodiments of the present invention, but it will be apparent that many modifications and changes will be readily apparent to those skilled in the art, and the present invention is not limited to the above-described exemplary embodiments, but can be applied to various devices without departing from the concept of the present invention.

Claims

1. 1. A system for managing online transactions of data over a network, comprising: a purchaser device, a supplier device, and an intermediary device that can communicate with each other via the network; The purchaser device is provided with a data purchase request notification sending means for sending a request to purchase data available from the supplier device to the intermediary device, a purchaser deposit remittance means for executing a process for remitting a purchaser deposit from the owner of the purchaser device to the owner of the intermediary device, and a transaction completion notification sending means for sending a transaction completion notification to the intermediary device to notify that the receipt of the purchase request data from the supplier device and the payment of the price of the purchase request data from the owner of the purchaser device to the owner of the supplier device have been completed, the intermediary device is provided with a data purchase request notification transfer means for transferring the notification of the purchaser's desire to purchase the data from the purchaser's device to the supplier's device in response to establishment of predetermined conditions including receipt of a notification of the purchaser's desire to purchase the data available from the supplier's device and completion of a remittance process of the purchaser's deposit from the owner of the purchaser's device to the owner of the intermediary device, and a deposit refund means for executing a process of refunding at least a portion of the purchaser's deposit to the owner of the purchaser's device upon receipt of the transaction completion notification from the purchaser's device, The supplier device is provided with a data purchase request notification receiving means for receiving from the intermediary device a notification of the purchaser device's desire to purchase data that can be supplied by the supplier device, and the system is configured so that the owner of the supplier device can transmit the data that the purchaser device wishes to purchase to the owner of the purchaser device by referring to the notification of the desire to purchase the data.

2. 2. The system of claim 1, wherein the deposit refund means in the intermediary device is configured to execute a process of refunding to the owner of the purchaser device an amount obtained by deducting a fee for the owner of the intermediary device from the purchaser deposit.

3. 10. The system of claim 1, The supplier device is further provided with a supplier deposit remittance means for executing a process of remitting a supplier deposit from the owner of the supplier device to the owner of the intermediary device; the predetermined condition for the data purchase request notification transfer means of the intermediary device to transfer the notification of the request to purchase the data from the purchaser device to the supplier device includes completion of a remittance process of the supplier deposit from the owner of the supplier device to the owner of the intermediary device; A system configured such that when the deposit refund means of the intermediary device receives the transaction completion notification from the buyer device, it further executes a process to refund at least a portion of the supplier deposit to the owner of the supplier device.

4. 4. The system of claim 3, the supplier device is further provided with means for calculating a hash value of the data desired to be purchased and means for transmitting the hash value to the purchaser; the purchaser device is further provided with means for calculating a hash value of the data received from the supplier device; A system configured such that the transaction completion notification sending means of the purchaser device sends the transaction completion notification to the intermediary device only when the hash value calculated by the purchaser device matches the hash value calculated from the data received from the supplier.

5. 3. The system of claim 2, wherein the intermediary device further comprises a buyer credit score determination means for determining and recording a credit score which is an index representing the degree of transactional credit of the buyer device, and the deposit money refund means of the intermediary device is configured to determine the fee of the owner of the intermediary device to be deducted from the buyer deposit based on the credit score.

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