8. Security measures

Ecommerce involves money. And so there will be thieves around trying to take that money away!

Laws have been created to try and safeguard your money and your rights for example the Data Protection Act and the Computer Misuse Act.

However, you need to be careful and make sure that if you want to buy things online that the site is reputable and has security measures in place.

Here are some of the things that you should be looking out for:

Encryption

A good ecommerce site will be using Encryption to protect your information.

Encryption means that personal details such as credit card numbers are scrambled by a secret code before they leave your computer. Only the shop computer can unscramble it. Anyone eavesdropping on the line will not be able to read the information.

Secure site

A web site using encryption has an URL that begins with HTTPS.

Notice the extra 'S' on the end.

This site is using Encryption to protect you data. See the 'S' on the end of http.

There should also be a small Padlock icon in view - in Firefox it is next to the URL, in other it may be down on a status bar.

If you hover or double-click on the padlock a pop-up box should confirm that this site has a digital certificate to authenticate it. Companies have to pay a trusted certification authority for this certificate.

User name and password

Another safeguard is "Keep your password safe!". Many ecommerce sites ask you to register with an user name and password.

So be careful about where you keep the password.