There is currently a great deal of hype surrounding the tremendous growth and potential of e-commerce. Many companies get on the bandwagon with the hope that providing an e-commerce front end will boost sales and, more importantly, increase the value of the company. Researchers, ever sensitive to the need to be on the leading edge to garner resources, are building e-commerce applications of technologies ranging from secure billing systems for on-line transactions to intelligent agents for business-to-business transactions. In this talk I will discuss the current state of e-commerce and focus on the threats and challenges associated with these emerging e-commerce technologies.