ASP (Application Service Provider)
Company that offers individuals or enterprises access over the internet to software applications and related services that would otherwise have to be located on their own personal or enterprise computers.

associations
Organization which administers and promotes different types of credit cards that are licensing and regulatory agencies for bankcard activities.

attachment
Computer file electronically attached to an email and sent along with it.

authorization
Approval of a credit card transaction by a card-issuing bank or approved service provider for a specific sum of money. The authorization indicates that the credit card holder has enough credit to be able to make the purchase.

autoresponder
Computer program that automatically returns a pre-written email message to anyone who sends email to a particular internet address.

B

B2B / BtoB (Business-to-Business)
Trade between businesses rather than between businesses and consumers.

B2C / BtoC (Business-to-Consumers)
Trade between businesses and consumers.

B2G / BtoG (Business-to-Government)
Trade between businesses and government.

back-end
Application or program that serves indirectly in support of the front-end services. For example, a CGI search script is a back-end application that processes and returns results for a search form submission.

backbone
High speed communication links that connect internet service providers and other large internet sites.

bandwidth
Bandwidth refers to the speed, in bits per second (bps), of data on internet connections.

bandwidth transfer
The amount of data your web hosting plan allows you to transfer in a given month. 'Transfer' means any data that needs to be sent to visitors at a site, such as HTML pages, images, sounds, music, and other files you have available for download.

bank card
Debit or credit card issued by a bank or financial institution.

banner ad
Advertisement in the form of a graphic image that is typically displayed on a webpage. Dimensions: Full banner (468 x 60 pixels), half banner (234 x 60) and vertical banner (120 x 240).

banner exchange
Ad network where member sites display banner ads on their own sites for credits, which allows them to purchase ad impressions on other member sites.

batch
A full day's worth of transactions collected together ready to be processed by a card processor.

BBS (Bulletin Board System)
Software that enables users to log into email, Usenet and chat groups via a modem.

BCC (Blind Carbon Copy)
Insert email addresses into the BCC field of an outgoing email to send an email to one or more recipients, without revealing the email addresses of all the recipients.

beacon
Code placed in an ad on a webpage, or in an email, to track whether the ad was delivered correctly.

beta / pre-release test
Phase of testing in which a sampling of the intended audience tries the product out, before it is launched.

beyond the banner
Every other form of internet advertising, except the standard animated GIF banners. For example, interstitials.

bit
Short for binary digit. The smallest unit of data in a computer. A bit has a single Boolean value, either 0 or 1.

bonus impressions
Free ad impressions above the commitments outlined in the approved insertion order.

booked space
Number of sold ad impressions for an ad space.

bookmark
Record the address of a file or webpage, so you can return to it later. In the Microsoft Internet Explorer browser, it's called, "Favorites." In the Netscape Navigator browser, it's called, "Bookmarks."

bounce
When email cannot be delivered and is returned to the sending mail server.

bps (bits per second)
A measure of how fast data is transmitted.

brand marketing
Concept of marketing a product, service, or company to identify its distinctive benefits and qualities.

button ad
Similar to banner ads, except they are smaller than the standard 468 by 60 pixel banner ads. Dimensions: Square button (125 x 125 pixels), button 1 (120 x 90), button 2 (120 x 60) and micro bar (88 x 31).

byte
Group of eight bits used to represent a character such as a letter (a), number (1), or typographic symbol (?).

C

cache / caching
A place to store something temporarily for quicker access at a later date. Typically, webpages are stored in a browser's cache directory on a hard disk, or on a local proxy server.

cache busting
Preventing browsers or proxy servers from serving content from their cache, in order to force the browser or proxy server to fetch a fresh copy for each user request. Cache busting is used to provide a more accurate count of the number of requests from users.

canonical domain names (CNAME)
Canonical domain names are sub-sets (prefixes as it were) of your main domain name which point to the same place. For example, mail.yoursite.com and members.yoursite.com.

cardholder
Any individual who has been issued a credit or debit card (bankcard).

card issuing bank
The bank that issued a credit or debit card (bankcard) to an individual or company.

CC (Carbon Copy)
Insert email addresses into the CC field of an outgoing email to send an email to one or more recipients.