This special issue is a product of the First Interdisciplinary Symposium on
Statistical Challenges and Opportunities in Electronic Commerce Research, which
took place on May 22--23, 2005, at the Robert H. Smith School of Business,
University of Maryland, College Park
(\url{www.smith.umd.edu/dit/statschallenges/}). The symposium brought together,
for the first time, researchers from statistics, information systems, and
related fields, all of whom work or are interested in empirical research
related to electronic commerce. The goal of the symposium was to cross the
borders, discuss joint research opportunities, expose this field and its
statistical challenges, and promote collaboration between the different fields.Comment: Published at http://dx.doi.org/10.1214/088342306000000178 in the
Statistical Science (http://www.imstat.org/sts/) by the Institute of
Mathematical Statistics (http://www.imstat.org