The distinctive features of virtual (online) commercial relationships are compared with traditional commerce. I discuss preferences for depersonalized exchange and arguments in favor of commercial coldness (arm’s length exchange relationship) as well as the advantages of anonymity and “cold transactions.” There are economic and demographic underpinnings, and technological responses to the—a priori exorbitant—cost of developing and maintaining genuine commercial relations. Should one consider the development of e-commerce and its attempts to artificially re-personalize exchange relationships in a virtual context as the return of a false and fake human warmth or as the real success of virtual interaction?