prevalent vision of agent-mediated trading on electronic marketplaces that intelligent, economically driven agents will form a rich, diverse, dynamic economic Web, and that agent-to-agent e-commerce transactions may eventually dominate the global economy in the future. Agents may facilitate advertising, matchmaking and brokering. Current application of single agent and multi-agent systems for e-commerce [...] e-commerce and business include, shopbots, agent-based virtual marketplaces and auctions. A general survey of basic key enabling techniques is presented which are needed to build such institutions of agent-mediated trading in the Internet, and examples of systems of economically rational behaving agents. Matthias Klusch, 2000