Abstract: An entity registers as an affiliate of an e-commerce site and then publishes information that promotes that WWW e-commerce site; an end-user with a mobile wireless device, sees that information and as a consequence sends a request to a remote server that can interact with the e-commerce site under control inputs from an application running on the device. The request includes data that uniquely defines the affiliate. This approach makes is easy to become an affiliate able to drive traffic from a mobile wireless device to a WWW e-commerce site; this is based on the re-use of existing affiliate management systems (previously not thought relevant to the m-commerce environment). Further, the mechanism for creating traffic for a WWW e-commerce site is easy; it just involves an affiliate publishing certain information.

Abstract: A system which enables a mobile telephone to be used to locate goods or services, comprising the following elements: (a) a communications network to allow a mobile telephone operator to receive, from the mobile telephone, criteria defining the goods or services required; (b) a searching system connected to receive the criteria and perform automated searches against those criteria using resources provided by suppliers of the goods or services and to send results over the communications network to the mobile telephone; (c) an electronic commerce and billing engine operating to allow the user of the mobile telephone to order goods or services from the operator and not the supplier.