Glossary term: Digital Wallet
A technology that stores credit cards and addresses for a consumer, and automatically gives the appropriate information to an online merchant when checking out. Several companies worked on digital wallets in the late 90's, but found a catch 22. Such technologies will not work reliably without assistance from the merchants. The merchants, however, have no incentive to help until/unless there is a large base of consumers using the technology. And consumers certainly aren't going to use the technology unless most merchants are compatible.As a result, digital wallets all but died out during the first half of the 00 decade.
The announcement of Google Checkout has reinvigorated the idea, and perhaps given it the first real chance of success.