Last week, Sultan Munadi, an Afghan interpreter, was killed during a conflict in northern Afghanistan that resulted in the release of New York Times reporter Stephan Farrell from Taliban captivity. Munadi had tried to express his and Farrell's neutrality when they were initially detained by the Taliban months ago. Following this tragedy, I paused this week to think about the role of an interpreter in a much less extreme example — namely, how it relates to e-commerce.