Glossary
What are Dark Web Marketplaces?
Catch-all term for websites set up to allow trade between vendors and buyers. When used in the context of selling illegal goods, these usually provide anonymity to the buyer and seller, a method of escrow to ensure reduced risk from new vendors and sellers, and a method of advertising goods to be sold at a price so that a purchase may be initiated and paid for without involvement from the seller. Most markets are also set up as ‘hidden services’ under anonymity networks like Tor, i2p, or Freenet, although there do exist some ‘clearnet’ markets that operate over standard HTTP/HTTPS.