A third-party billing system and method permits consumers to conduct
e-commerce transactions (including microtransactions) securely and
anonymously by providing billing and personal information to the third
party billing system rather than to merchants. A consumer initiates a
transaction by placing an order for a product. The consumer then
authorizes the transaction by transmitting an authorization code to a
billing computer. The authorization code identifies the consumer billing
account to which the transaction is to be charged. The authorization code
can also authenticate the consumer through use of a PIN. Multiple
consumers can charge transactions to one billing account, in which case
each consumer can be assigned a different PIN with restrictions that
limit that consumer's use of the account. The billing computer then
verifies the authorization code and transmits an approval code to the
merchant computer. To fulfill the transaction, the consumer sends a
fulfillment request and a consumer identifier to the merchant computer.
The consumer identifier can be anonymous, meaning that it identifies only
the destination to which the product is to be delivered. If that consumer
identifier matches a second consumer identifier that the consumer sends
to the billing computer, the merchant computer then delivers the product
to the consumer. The billing computer can charge the transaction to the
consumer billing account directly, or it can aggregate the transaction
for later charging of an aggregated total. The billing computer can also
obtain a charge pre-authorization to ensure that the billing account can
accommodate the charging of aggregated transactions.