Information and interaction in MarketSpace and their implementation in Prolog

Current web-based commerce is by and large a replica of real-world commerce. Customers are supposed to visit various electronic storefronts, inspect the digital displays of goods and services, and, perhaps after some comparison shopping, place an order. Unfortunately they have to do it in person. Attempts at supporting the customer through \intelligent agents" are guaranteed to be in vain, unless the underlying model is changed. It would have to be one bright agent to, using the web as is, nd a few good deals on a fridge at nearby resellers, haggle prices and delivery conditions, and then present the three best alternatives. Which minute fraction of the 50000 hits on \refrigerator" in AltaVista is at all relevant? In these, what part of the text is the price, the model, the delivery conditions? Needless to say, much better models are possible, in which the above would be a very basic service, and one such model will sooner or later supplant the web-based models. The web, and associated technologies such as Java, will remain as the user interface, but a new infrastructure will emerge that is targeted to the task of creating a near-perfect global market. In this position paper, we present work towards such an infrastructure, characterised by openness and by being based on a paradigm of interacting agents. We would like the market to be open like the web. Nobody should own it. Anyone should be able to enter it. Anyone should be able to o er any kind of service, such as brokering. This is typically not the case with current markets, where all information is owned by the market operator and not available for use by others [1, 2].